Campuses of several US Universities have been witnessing massive protests with the students seeking a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas. Police have arrested over 550 protesters and some universities are witnessing violent clashes between cops and the activists.

Law enforcement officials at the behest of college administrators have deployed tasers and tear gas against students protesters at Atlanta’s Emory University, even though the protests have been largely peaceful, say activists and media personnel present at the spot.

Emil’ Keme, professor of English and Indigenous studies, at the University said that the scene reminded him of the civil war in Guatemala as a teenager.

“Police immediately began to force people to move. I felt like I was in a war zone, with all the police and their weapons, the rubber bullets. We were pushed away,” Mr Keme told the Guardian describing what happened as soon as cops entered the Emory campus.

“Police took the student next to me, pushed an older lady nearby and then pushed me.”

Student protesters say they are expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the death toll has topped 34,305, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. They want universities to cut their investments in everything tied to Israel and weapons that fuel the war in Gaza. That means funds run by BlackRock, Google as well as Amazon’s cloud service, Lockheed Martin and even Airbnb.

Video circulated widely on social media shows two women who identified themselves as professors being detained, with one of them slammed to the ground by one officer as a second officer then pushes her chest and face onto a concrete sidewalk.

FULL VIDEO OF ELDERLY AMERICAN ECONOMICS PROFESSOR CAROLINE FOHLIN BEING ASSAULTED BY POLICE

She is an over 65 year old American woman.

Americans attacked for Israel.

What if this was your mother/grandmother? pic.twitter.com/ne7uDsPGIX

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) April 26, 2024

#BREAKING: Chaos has Unleashed at Emory University as Georgia Police Deploy Tasers, Rubber Bullets, and Tear Gas Against Protesters⁰⁰#Atlanta | #Georgia ⁰
Moments ago at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, hundreds of students, pro-Palestine protesters, and other… pic.twitter.com/LEwwGuKBEn

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) April 25, 2024

Atlanta police and Georgia troopers are leading a joint operation within the campus to dismantle the tents and camps the activists have set up at the school’s quadrangle. Within minutes of the authorities entering the campus, 28 people, 20 of whom were “Emory community members”, had been arrested, the institute said in a statement.

The school president said that the videos of police clashing with the students “are shocking” and that he is “horrified horrified that members of our community had to experience and witness such interactions.”

The university’s response was likely the quickest show of police force in response to a divestment protest among the dozens nationwide that have occurred in recent weeks. It was also probably the only one where pepper balls, stun guns and rubber bullets were used.

Primatologist Frans de Waal, whose study of chimpanzees and apes helped reveal the reconciliatory and empathic nature of primates— including humans— has died at age 75, said the university where he worked for decades.

De Waal, who won multiple awards over his long career, wrote several popular books and in 2007 made Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people, succumbed to stomach cancer on March 14, Emory University said on March 16 in a statement and tribute on its website.

The Netherlands-born scientist spent decades studying chimpanzees and apes, and his biological research eventually helped debunk the theory that primates including humans were naturally “nasty” and aggressive competitors.

“De Waal shattered long-held ideas about what it means to be an animal and a human,” Emory, based in Atlanta in the U.S. state of Georgia, said in its statement.

“He demonstrated the roots of human nature in our closest living relatives through his studies of conflict resolution, reconciliation, cooperation, empathy, fairness, morality, social learning and culture in chimpanzees, bonobos and capuchin monkeys.”

Lynne Nygaard, chair of Emory’s Department of Psychology, remembered de Waal as “an extraordinarily deep thinker” who could offer “insights that cut across disciplines.”

“It’s difficult to sum up the enormity of Frans de Waal’s impact, both globally and here at Emory,” she said in the statement.

De Waal wrote popular and critically acclaimed books that helped explain his research to a broader public, including “Our Inner Ape,” “Different” and “Peacemaking Among Primates.”

“I’ve brought apes a little closer to humans but I’ve also brought humans down a bit,” Emory quoted de Waal as saying.

The scientist was a prolific lecturer and his TED Talks have been seen millions of times, including one from 2011, when he showed the “reconciliation” exhibited by chimpanzees, the empathy and reciprocity of monkeys who shared food, and how such social behavior compared to their human cousins.

“Humanity is actually much more cooperative and empathic than given credit for,” he said in the lecture.

De Waal won the E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award in 2020, and in 2021 he won the Ig Nobel Prize, a satiric award that honors achievements that make people laugh, and then make them think.