US campus protest arrests exceed 2,300 as police tear down encampments
Police arrested more than 2,300 people after cracking down on Israel-Hamas war protests at university campuses across the US.
Violent clashes between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel supporters have erupted throughout the week, with tensions reaching boiling point in New York and Los Angeles.
Around a dozen protesters who refused police calls to leave were arrested at New York University (NYU), while 30 more left voluntarily.
The university asked the New York Police Department (NYPD) to intervene “to minimise the likelihood of injury" and disruption, NYU spokesman John Beckman said.
Tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread across US campuses in a student movement unlike any other this century.
Israel has branded the protests anti-Semitic, while Israel’s critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition.
Although some protesters have been caught on camera making anti-Semitic remarks or violent threats, protest organisers - some of whom are Jewish - call it a peaceful movement to defend Palestinian rights and protest against the war.
President Joe Biden has defended the students’ right to protest peacefully but decried the violence and disruption of campus life.
The student protest movement began on April 17 at Columbia University, where student protesters built an encampment to call for an end to the Israel-Hamas war.
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the region.
Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after October 7, when Hamas militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages in an attack on southern Israel.
More than 100 people were arrested late on Tuesday when police broke up the Columbia encampment.
One officer accidentally discharged his gun inside Hamilton Hall during that operation, but no one was injured, the NYPD said late on Thursday.
He was trying to use the flashlight attached to his gun but instead fired a single round that struck a frame on the wall, police said.
Arrests have been made at the University of California as police clash with pro-Palestinian students, ITV News' US Correspondent Robert Moore reports
At the University of California, Los Angeles, more than 200 people were taken into custody early on Thursday, after hundreds of protesters defied orders to leave, some forming human chains as police fired light grenades to break up the crowds.
Police tore apart a fortified encampment’s barricade of plywood, pallets, metal fences and dumpsters, then pulled down canopies and tents.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block told alumni on a call on Thursday afternoon that administrators tried to find a peaceful solution and that things had been stable on campus until counterdemonstrators attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment late on Tuesday.
Campus administrators and police did not intervene or call for backup for hours. No one was arrested that night, but at least 15 protesters were injured.
By Wednesday, the encampment had become “much more of a bunker” and there was no other solution but to have police dismantle it, Mr Block said.
Officers warned over loudspeakers that there would be arrests if the crowd did not disperse.
Hundreds left voluntarily, while another 200-plus remained and were arrested.
Arrests have been made during at least 58 crackdowns on protesters at 44 colleges or universities since April 18, according to figures based on Associated Press reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies.
University of Minnesota officials reached an agreement with protesters not to disrupt commencements, and similar compromises have been made at Northwestern University in suburban Chicago, Rutgers University in New Jersey and Brown University in Rhode Island.
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