Pro-Palestinian protesters commanded the spotlight on college campuses for nearly two years, holding rally after rally, building encampments, signing petitions, and occupying buildings as they raised awareness about the Israel-Hamas war and growing death toll in Gaza.

They got the attention they sought -- but at a cost. Protesters at New England colleges have scored limited concrete wins in pushing their universities to cut ties with Israel as some tactics have provoked a blistering backlash to their movement.

Students this fall return to an increasingly-hostile landscape: Colleges have amped up discipline for protests they've claimed are antisemitic, while President Trump has centered the movement's excesses in efforts to reshape higher education.

Now, as the Gaza war approaches its third year, organizers say some who rallied their campuses to support Palestinians are fatigued by the bloody conflict. Others sympathetic to the cause are wary of being punished for participating in protests -- or, for international students, facing legal jeopardy.

Between campus restrictions and threats from the Trump administration, there's "more of a cautious mindset" among activists, said Nuriel Vera-DeGraff, a senior at Harvard University who helped lead pro-Palestinian protests.

"It's hard because people aren't really talking about what's happening in Gaza at the moment, unfortunately, but the situation, if anything, is just escalating for the worse," Vera-DeGraff said. "In addition to having the Harvard administration against us already, we now have a national government who is willing to pretty much deport anyone as they feel like it, and that is a very real risk."

Still, buoyed by support from peers who back their concerns, student activists are focusing on getting resources to Palestinians, organizing educational campaigns, and carefully planning demonstrations that keep supporters safe. They're creating community networks for international students, looking to prevent personal information from being shared online, and provide legal or financial support.

Students at Boston University held a protest Monday where they demanded a building's name be changed to honor a Palestinian journalist. At Harvard, students are holding "Keffiyeh Thursdays," asking students to wear traditional Palestinian scarves. Organizers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are publishing information on social media about the school's ties to Israel. And several more groups are promoting fund-raisers, from art fairs to basketball tournaments, to support Palestinian families.

"This is not a semester-long struggle, it's not a two-year struggle, it's not going to end when or if the war ends in Gaza," said Richard Solomon with MIT's Coalition for Palestine, who was suspended and barred from campus last month for attending a protest in Harvard Square.

"I don't think MIT students are going to shut up and go back to their problem sets just because the administration is threatening them or retaliating for their activism and free speech," he added.

Protests began after Israel invaded Gaza following Hamas attacking Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing or abducting hundreds of Israelis. The situation in Gaza -- where the area's health ministry says more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed -- has worsened in recent weeks. Israel launched a ground invasion into Gaza City on Tuesday, pledging to take control of the densely populated city as global watchdogs already declared famine there.

Few schools have divested from Israel altogether -- though organizers have celebrated smaller changes, such as MIT ending its partnership with the MIT-Lockheed Martin Seed Fund, a collaboration between MIT and universities in Israel.

Instead, they've cracked down for months on when and how activists can protest, following the height of 2024 protests and counterprotests, when Jewish and Muslim students reported seeing offensive slogans or rhetoric and experiencing social shunning from peers. Last fall, many Jewish students said they were on edge after pro-Palestinian protesters vandalized buildings and statues across several campuses.

Administrators made policy changes and disciplined students who led those efforts even before Trump took office, actions students say have only ramped up over the summer. Harvard, for instance, disciplined a pro-Palestinian student group for violating campus policies, prohibited demonstrations in campus spaces, and changed student disciplinary proceedings. Schools including BU, Emerson College, and Tufts University suspended or placed Students for Justice in Palestine chapters on probation, forcing organizations to regroup.

"It's really difficult right now -- we're at a stage in this assault that we've never seen before," said Jeremy Fleishhacker, an MIT doctoral student with Jews for Collective Liberation.

The encampments built in spring 2024 "felt like a tipping point for the movement . . . and yet the assault continues and institutions have only cracked down on students," Fleishhacker said. "It's time to rethink what our goals need to be."

Some organizers said they're gauging support on campus before planning events. Others were hesitant to share specifics, fearing surveillance by school administrators or federal immigration enforcement.

Trump officials, meanwhile, have painted students who protested as "pro-Hamas," allegations that may not have resonated among their peers but that organizers acknowledge hurt their public standing.

The federal administration further discouraged protests by pushing schools to punish protesters and attacking colleges in the name of addressing antisemitism. It's detained students with visas or green cards, such as Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts doctoral student from Turkey who wrote an op-ed supporting Palestinians in the student newspaper.

Republicans have echoed pro-Israel groups in casting calls for divestment from Israel, the only Jewish state, as antisemitic -- claims pro-Palestinian groups have forcefully rejected, saying many Jewish peers also oppose the Israeli government's actions.

Some schools negotiating to escape federal funding threats issued by Trump have further quelled protests: Days before announcing a deal in July, Columbia University suspended or expelled 80 students involved with a May 2024 pro-Palestinian demonstration.

The environment has been "chilling," said Laura Beltz, director of policy reform at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression in Philadelphia, leaving students "not sure if their speech will be defended by their universities because of overreach on campuses."

"There is a very strong possibility that not only international students, but all students, are thinking that it will be better to self-censor on this topic," she said.

Some organizers said that's already happened. Sintra Reves-Sohn, a University of Massachusetts Amherst graduate student, said an international student who joined their Palestine Solidarity Caucus' group chat this spring abruptly asked to be removed, worrying political activity could affect their legal status.

At Harvard, Mahmoud Al-Thabata, a junior, said the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee saw at least a dozen Harvard colleagues appear this summer on Canary Mission, a pro-Israel website that publicizes protesters' names.

Harvard ousting leaders of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Al-Thabata said, showed how Palestinian academia "has been gutted and dismantled," a move he called "a very dark precedent on how universities treat academia: When they're supposed to be beacons of it, they in reality shut it down entirely."

Organizers now say they're focused on keeping members safe while promoting political education on Palestinians. Those still active remain encouraged by their peers' support: Student groups this spring passed resolutions urging schools to divest from Israel. Polls have shown Israel's public support dwindling, with Americans under 30 especially likely to sympathize with Palestinians.

"Instead of feeding ourselves to the machine through acts of civil disobedience, we're trying to plan ways we can create alternative institutions that really actively unite people, rather than show up for a day and then repercussions weigh down on us for months to come," said Tatiana Rodriguez, another UMass Amherst graduate student.

Some professors, too, are offering support: Faculty across several UMass campuses in April wrote to the system's board urging them to divest from funds that support Israel.

"The plan is to build power, and we need to figure out how to do that, probably through a lot of public education," said Heike Schotten, a UMass Boston political science professor. The group has a "two-pronged, big picture strategy" -- to advocate for divestment and push the university system to be more transparent.

Organizers say they aren't going anywhere, using the slogan "we keep each other safe" as a north star.

"We see our institutions' and our country's crackdown on our solidarity with Palestine as a form of weakness . . . we've been able to adapt and mobilize around," said Kaden Paulson-Smith, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

"If we're going to see our institutions take a stand for their alleged values and beliefs," Paulson-Smith added, "this is it -- this is the test."

'This is the test': Exhausted but resolute, pro-Palestinian campus protesters face uncertain future - The Boston Globe