While all eyes in the nation are fixed on the police response to pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and the University of California, Los Angeles, this week, demonstrations are spreading beyond the Ivy Leagues and universities on the East and West coasts.

Students at several colleges and universities in the Midwest have orchestrated pro-Palestinian demonstrations, including encampments and protests, joining students at numerous schools across the country in calling for divestments from companies that do business with Israel. Part of their demands include increased transparency about university ties to Israel and a public denouncement of Israels attacks on Gaza as a genocide.

On Oct. 7, the militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and about 240 people were taken hostage. In retaliation, Israel has repeatedly launched strikes on the Gaza Strip, resulting in more than 30,000 deaths so far, the displacement of nearly the entire population and a growing famine. The deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli military have prompted a mobilization of college students across the U.S. and the world.

Protests at Ivy League schools and larger institutions in major cities have been met with forceful pushback from university officials, many of whom have called in law enforcement to crack down on the demonstrations.

Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian rallies at many universities in the Midwest have been able to continue without much police escalation or incidents.

On Wednesday, hundreds of demonstrators, including faculty and students, gathered on Ohio State Universitys campus for a protest in which they chanted, prayed and waved Palestine flags. According to The Columbus Dispatch , the gathering remained peaceful and nonviolent with minimal confrontation with police officers, a contrast to a smaller demonstration at OSU last week that resulted in 36 arrests.

Students at the University of Nebraska, University of Kansas and Iowa State University also held protests at their campuses on Wednesday, which remained peaceful and calm throughout the day without any major police intervention, local news outlets reported .

Our positionality in the Midwest is important in this movement because there is a shared fallacy that non-white bodies do not exist, KU Students for Justice in Palestine said in a social media post . Midwest is often dismissed as a region of little significance in elections; however, our voices today align and express the same disgust for the ongoing financial support that the U.S. provides toward the genocide of the Palestinian people.