Pro-Palestinian student protesters break through police fencing at MIT

Students link arms around tents on campus and block local thoroughfare as they call for end to killings in Gaza

Pro-Palestinian protesters who had been blocked by police from accessing an encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Monday broke through fencing, linked arms and encircled tents that remained there, as Columbia University canceled its university-wide commencement ceremony following weeks of pro-Palestinian protests.

Sam Ihns, a graduate student at MIT studying mechanical engineering and a member of MIT Jews for a Ceasefire, said the group had been at the encampment for the past two weeks and that they were calling for an end to the killing of thousands of people in Gaza.