After Columbia on Tuesday, clashes broke out on Wednesday on the sidelines of a pro-Palestinian rally on the campus of UCLA University, in Los Angeles, according to images broadcast by American television. Los Angeles police “immediately responded to the call for help on campus,” city spokesperson Zach Seidl wrote on X.
At the request of UCLA, due to multiple acts of violence within the large encampment on their campus, the LAPD is responding to assist UCLA PD, and other law enforcement agencies, to restore order and maintain public safety.
— LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) May 1, 2024
Protesters and counter-protesters clashed with sticks, threw objects at each other and shot fireworks at each other, the footage showed. The clashes which began just before dawn pitted pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups, according to CNN.
Campus occupancy
For two weeks, many university leaders across the country have faced demonstrators, sometimes only a few dozen, who have occupied their campuses to oppose Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas. Pro-Palestinian students thus established a camp in the heart of the UCLA campus, on a lawn surrounded by barricades.
UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block had warned, before these clashes, against the presence among the pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupying the campus of people from outside the university.
Pushing and insults
Already on Sunday, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators, supported by numerous demonstrators from outside the campus, came to blows, with shoving and insults.
“Many protesters and counter-protesters practice their activism peacefully. But others use methods that are frankly shocking and shameful,” he wrote in a message posted Tuesday on the university’s website. “We have witnessed acts of violence. These incidents have caused, especially among our Jewish students, deep anxiety and fear,” he added.
Manual military intervention
Tuesday evening, New York police dislodged pro-Palestinian demonstrators barricaded in a building at Columbia University, intervening manu militari in the epicenter of pro-Palestinian mobilization on American campuses.
A New York police spokesperson announced to the New York Times around 3 a.m. GMT on Wednesday that the operation had ended: “There is no one left in the building” and the camp is empty. About two hours later, an AFP journalist was able to see that the encampment had been cleaned, with all the tents taken down by university staff and the remaining items thrown into huge black trash bags. .
For their part, the American media claimed that all the demonstrators had been evacuated from the campus.
Source AFP