Photos: Campus Protests Grow Across Bay Area

As pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments continue to sweep across dozens of U.S. college campuses, the Bay Area is no exception to rising student activism.

Hundreds of students at colleges and universities around the region rallied and established encampments in the past week, with many demanding their schools divest from companies linked to Israel.

Students at UC Berkeley and Stanford University rallied and set up tents at campus plazas last week, while new encampments and teach-ins began at San Francisco State University, the University of San Francisco and Sonoma State University this week.

Student demonstrations in the Bay Area have so far remained peaceful, in sharp contrast to protests elsewhere in the country where pro-Palestinian activists have been met with violence, most recently on UCLA’s campus, where pro-Israel demonstrators attacked an encampment overnight, and subsequent fights between the groups continued for hours without intervention from law enforcement. Read more coverage of Israel’s war in Gaza, which has now killed at least 34,500 Palestinians since Hamas’s Oct. 7 cross-border attack killed 1,200 Israelis and claimed 240 hostages.

KQED photojournalists have been documenting these student-led actions across the Bay Area.