Police were gathered early Thursday on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, where administrators declared a pro-Palestinian protest camp unlawful and authorities told people to clear the area.
The police action came a night after counter-demonstrators supporting Israel repeatedly threw objects and tried to dismantle barricades erected by the pro-Palestinian group, which is seeking to have the university divest from Israel.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block blamed “a group of instigators” for the Wednesday night violence.
“However one feels about the encampment, this attack on our students, faculty and community members was utterly unacceptable,” Block said in a statement.
The UCLA protest is one of many pro-Palestinian demonstrations at college campuses across the country, which have included hundreds of arrests.
Police in New Hampshire made arrests and removed tents late Wednesday and early Thursday at Dartmouth College.
A pro-Palestinian protest camp emerged at Dartmouth on Wednesday as administrators warned that such a camp would violate school policy.
In a letter to the campus community highlighting the policy, Provost David Kotz said the institution “remains deeply committed to dialogue across difference and open and willing to engage in conversation on difficult topics.”
Two students were arrested at Dartmouth in October after erecting a tent as part of a protest calling for divestment from Israel.
A group of Dartmouth students later engaged in a hunger strike to protest the arrests, and a Gaza solidarity rally on the campus last week drew more than 100 people on the campus.
At the University of Texas at Dallas, police cleared a pro-Palestinian camp following the arrest of at least 17 people.
In New York, police arrested at least 15 people Wednesday at Fordham University while clearing a pro-Palestinian protest camp.
At the University of Minnesota, protest organizers said late Wednesday their encampment would continue after they held talks earlier in the day with interim university President Jeff Ettinger. Like at many of the schools, the protesters are calling for the university to divest from Israel. Ettinger described the talks as a “constructive dialogue.”
Columbia University administrators said Wednesday that all remaining academic activity for the semester, which is nearing its end, will be held remotely following protests that included the occupation of a campus building. Police cleared protesters late Tuesday and arrested nearly 300 people.
At a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday about Palestinian statehood, Israel’s ambassador condemned the student protesters.
“We always knew that Hamas hides in schools – we just didn’t realize that it’s not just schools in Gaza, but it’s also Harvard, Columbia and many ‘elite’ universities” in the U.S., Gilad Erdan said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday that people “have the right to peacefully protest as long as it’s within the law and that it’s peaceful.”
“We are talking about protecting students and making sure that they feel safe on campus,” Jean-Pierre said. “We’re talking about a small group of students who are disrupting that ability for students to have that academic experience.”
Jean-Pierre said the Biden administration is “also going to call out any type of antisemitism that we are hearing, that we are seeing — the hate.”
Israel launched its counter-offensive in Gaza after Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group, launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7. Militants killed about 1,200 people according to Israeli tallies, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. Vowing to erase Hamas control of Gaza, Israel has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians in the territory along the Mediterranean Sea, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
VOA United Nations correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some information in this report came from Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press and Reuters.
