Police, protesters face-off at US varsity in campus unrest over Gaza

Hundreds of police and protesters were in a tense stand-off early Thursday at the University of California, Los Angeles as unrest over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza simmers on US campuses.

Officers in riot gear moved in to start removing some barricades around the protest encampment, CNN footage showed, with several protesters detained.

Police used flashbangs to disperse the crowds gathered outside the encampment who were chanting “Let them go!,” an AFP journalist at the scene reported as helicopters hovered overhead.

“This is a peaceful protest, there are no counter-protestors tonight, so to call the police on them is despicable. This city should support them,” LA resident Jack Bedrosian who came along to show support told AFP.

The large police presence, including California Highway Patrol and LAPD officers, comes after law enforcement were criticized for being slow to act during violent clashes late Tuesday night when counter-protesters attacked an encampment of pro-Palestinian students.

“There is a large police presence from multiple law enforcement agencies after outside mobs attacked peaceful student protestors last night with no one protecting them,” LA City Controller Kenneth Mejia posted on social media site X from the campus earlier.

“Students now face police. We urge UCLA & City leaders to protect students, not do more harm.”

UCLA said classes would be remote on Thursday and Friday due to the “emergency on campus,” and warned students to avoid the protest area.

The sight of helmeted officers at one of the most prestigious US universities left some students dismayed.

“I don’t think we should have a heavy police force on campus,” UCLA student Mark Torre, 22, told AFP earlier as he surveyed the scene from behind metal barriers.

“But more and more, day by day, I think it’s a necessary evil, to at least keep safety on campus.”

Late Tuesday counter-protesters had sprayed chemical substances onto the pro-Palestinian encampment and attempted to tear down wooden boards and metal barricades before police eventually arrived.

– Wave of unrest –

Demonstrators have gathered in at least 30 US universities since last month, often erecting tent encampments to protest the soaring death toll in the Gaza Strip.

Police tore down a protest encampment at the University of Texas on Wednesday, arresting more than a dozen people, as unrest over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza simmered on US campuses.

Officers also detained several people at Fordham University in New York and cleared an encampment set up inside a school building, officials said, and law enforcement were on standby at Columbia University across town after mass arrests the previous evening.

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, protesters dug in, blocking an avenue near the center of the campus in Cambridge during the height of Wednesday afternoon’s rush hour commute.

The University of Texas Dallas saw police remove an encampment and arrest at least 17 people for “criminal trespass,” the school said.

At Columbia and at the City University of New York, where police cleared out demonstrators overnight into Wednesday, some students decried the police behaviour.

“We were assaulted, brutally arrested. And I was held for up to six hours before being released, pretty banged up, got stomped on, got cut up,” one CUNY student who gave his name only as Jose told AFP.

A medical student offering treatment to detainees as they were released described a litany of injuries.

“We’ve seen things like severe head traumas, concussions, someone was knocked unconscious in the encampment by police, someone was thrown down the stairs,” said the student, who gave her name as Isabel.

About 300 arrests were made at Columbia and CUNY, Police Commissioner Edward Caban said.

Mayor Eric Adams blamed “outside agitators” for ratcheting up tensions. Columbia students have denied outsiders were involved.

– Balancing act –

The protests have posed a challenge to university administrators trying to balance free speech rights with complaints of criminal activity, anti-Semitism and hate speech.

The administration of President Joe Biden — whose support for Israel has outraged many protesters — has also tried to walk that line.

“We believe it’s a small number of students who are causing this disruption, and if they’re going to protest, Americans have the right to do it in a peaceful way within the law,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

Biden’s rival in the November election, Donald Trump, voiced his full-throated support for the police response at Columbia.

“It was a beautiful thing to watch. New York’s finest,” he told a rally in Wisconsin.

“To every college president, I say remove the encampments immediately, vanquish the radicals and take back our campuses for all of the normal students.”

On Wednesday, Columbia students on loudspeakers called for demonstrators to keep going at a camp blocking the entrance to one of the school’s main libraries, which bore graffiti reading: “Free Gaza.”

The Gaza war started when Hamas militants staged an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 that left around 1,170 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

The militants also took about 250 hostages.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 34,500 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

AFP