Police move in after pro-Israel supporters attack pro-Palestinian camp at UCLA

Police deployed in force on the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) campus on Wednesday morning after Israel supporters attacked a camp set up by pro-Palestinian protesters.

Witness footage from the scene, verified by Reuters, showed people wielding sticks or poles to attack wooden boards being held up as a makeshift barricade to protect the pro-Palestinian protesters, some of whom held placards or umbrellas.

On the other side of the country, police in New York arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators holed up in a building at Columbia University and removed a protest encampment on Tuesday night.

The Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip and the ensuing Israeli offensive on the Palestinian enclave have unleashed the biggest outpouring of US student activism since the anti-racism protests of 2020.

As student rallies have spread to dozens of schools across the US in recent days expressing opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza, police have been called in to quell or clear protests.

About 1,200 people in southern Israel were killed in the Oct. 7 attack but the Israeli retaliatory assault has killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health ministry figures, obliterated much of the enclave’s infrastructure, and created a humanitarian crisis verging on famine.

The student protests in the United States have also taken on political overtones in the run-up to the presidential election in November, with Republicans accusing some university administrators of turning a blind eye to antisemitic rhetoric and harassment.

On Tuesday, school officials informed the protesters that the encampment was unlawful and violated university policy. UCLA Chancellor Gene Brock said it included people “unaffiliated with our campus.”

Footage from the early hours showed mostly masked counter-demonstrators throwing objects and trying to smash or pull down the wooden and steel barriers erected to shield the encampment as pro-Palestinian protesters tried to fight them off.

Demonstrators on both sides sprayed each other and fights broke out.

The Los Angeles Police Department said it had responded to a request from UCLA to restore order and maintain public safety “due to multiple acts of violence within the large encampment on their campus.”

Broadcast footage later showed a police cordon clearing a central quad beside the encampment. By 5 a.m. (1200 GMT) they had erected a metal crowd barrier in front of the encampment and the area was quiet.

Los Angeles Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky, whose district includes UCLA, posted on X: “Everyone has a right to free speech and protest, but the situation on UCLA’s campus is out of control and is no longer safe.”