CHICAGO — Campus police removed a protest encampment at the University of Chicago early Tuesday as colleges nationwide continued to grapple with a wave of demonstrations against the war in Gaza, where Israeli forces have entered the southern city of Rafah.

The decision by the president of the University of Chicago to end an eight-day pro-Palestinian protest marks a turning point for the institution, which has built a reputation in higher education for protecting freedom of expression.

The university’s president, Paul Alivisatos, warned in recent days that its hands-off approach to the protest could no longer continue. On Tuesday, he said safety concerns had increased, prompting the university to intervene.

The University of Chicago “remains a place where dissenting voices have many avenues to express themselves,” Alivisatos said in a statement. “But we cannot enable an environment where the expression of some dominates and disrupts the healthy functioning of the community for the rest.”

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No arrests were reported in the dismantling of the encampment.

The ferocity of Israel’s response to the Hamas attacks Oct. 7 has galvanized students to action: More than 34,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

In remarks Tuesday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual remembrance ceremony at the Capitol, President Biden reaffirmed the right to peaceful protest but condemned hateful and inflammatory rhetoric.

“There is no place on any campus in America, any place in America, for antisemitism or hate speech or threats of violence of any kind,” he said. “Whether against Jews or anyone else.”

The University of Chicago became the latest institution to declare that protesters must disperse, part of a broader pushback against the campus demonstrations that has included more than 2,500 arrests and a surge in student suspensions.

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A day earlier, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology cleared an encampment on its campus, while the interim president of Harvard University warned that students who remained in the protest there would face “increasingly severe sanctions.”

Students, meanwhile, say they will keep pressing their demands, which have included pushing universities to divest from companies involved in Israel’s war effort, boycott Israeli academic institutions and revoke disciplinary consequences for protesters.

At the Rhode Island School of Design, students remained barricaded on one floor of a school building for a second day. They called on supporters to join a rally Tuesday evening in response to Israel’s ground incursion into Rafah.

At Princeton University, 14 students who have consumed nothing but water since Friday continued a hunger strike on a campus lawn. Jennifer Morrill, a Princeton spokeswoman, said the university’s director of medical services has been in touch with an outside physician monitoring the group.

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Christopher Eisgruber, the university’s president, wrote in a campuswide note Tuesday that Princeton can consider the concerns of the protesters “through appropriate processes” but cannot allow any group to “exert special leverage.” A statement issued on behalf of the protesters said they had met with Eisgruber on Monday, and he refused their demands.

In Chicago, campus police officers in riot gear arrived before dawn to dismantle tents, signs and structures. The school reported that the main quad was clear as of Tuesday morning.

The encampment at the university was mostly peaceful until last Friday, when police intervened as small skirmishes broke out between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and counterprotesters waving American and Israeli flags.

Though the conflict dissipated after a few hours, Alivisatos stepped up warnings over the weekend that the encampment could not remain.

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The protesters disputed the administration’s portrayal of the encampment as a safety risk and disruptive to campus operations. On Saturday, the school’s main campus on Chicago’s South Side was bustling with tours of prospective students and an event held at the nearby Booth School of Business.

Several student organizers accused the administration of hypocrisy for trying to quell demonstrations in light of the university’s history of protecting free speech over more than a century — including through the Cold War and protests against the war in Vietnam — culminating in a 2015 declaration known as the Chicago Principles that became a template for other universities.

The university had originally contacted the office of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) to request the Chicago Police Department’s early-morning assistance, according to a statement from the mayor’s office Tuesday. The CPD expressed “operational concerns” and declined to participate, the statement said.

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At a Saturday rally, several lawmakers and civil rights leaders spoke in support of the protesters, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr. and Illinois state Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid (D), the first Palestinian American to serve in the Illinois House of Representatives.

By Tuesday afternoon, most traces of the encampment were gone. Dumpsters on campus were filled with tents and signs. But protesters vowed to continue their campaign. “The encampment is not just tents,” one organizer told the Chicago Maroon, the student paper. “We’re still here, and this is not the end of it.”

Slater reported from Williamstown, Mass. Matt Viser in Washington contributed to this report.

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