LOS ANGELES — Police removed barricades and began dismantling a fortified encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters Thursday morning at the University of California, Los Angeles, after hundreds of demonstrators defied orders to leave. Some people were detained, with their hands tied with cable ties.
The action came after police spent hours threatening arrests over loudspeakers if people did not disperse. A crowd of more than 1,000 people gathered on campus, both inside a barricaded camp and outside, in support. Protesters and police pushed and fought as officers encountered resistance.
With police helicopters hovering, the sound of flash-bangs, which produce a bright light and loud noise to disorient and stun people, pierced the air. Protesters chanted, “Where were you last night?” against the police officers, in reference to Tuesday night, when counterprotesters attacked the camp and the UCLA administration and campus police took hours to respond.
Tent camps of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or with companies that say they support the war in Gaza have spread to campuses across the country in a student movement unlike any other this century. The police crackdowns that followed reflected decades-old actions against a much larger protest movement against the Vietnam War.
In the Middle East, Iranian state television broadcast live footage of police action, as did Qatar’s pan-Arab satellite network Al Jazeera. Live footage from Los Angeles was also broadcast on Israeli television networks.
California Highway Patrol officers swarmed the campus by the hundreds on Thursday morning. Wearing face shields and protective vests, they stood with batons protruding to separate them from the protesters, who wore helmets and gas masks and shouted: “You want peace. We want justice.”
Police methodically destroyed the camp’s plywood barricade, pallets, metal fences and trash cans and opened an opening toward dozens of protesters’ tents. Police officers also began tearing down awnings and tents.
Protesters rebuilt makeshift barriers around their tents Wednesday as state and university police looked on.
The presence of authorities and continued warnings contrasted with the scene that unfolded the night before, when counter-protesters attacked the pro-Palestinian camp, throwing traffic cones, releasing pepper spray and tearing down barriers. Fighting continued for several hours before police intervened, although no arrests were made. At least 15 protesters were injured and authorities’ tepid response drew criticism from political leaders as well as Muslim students and advocacy groups.
On Wednesday afternoon, a small town emerged inside the reinforced camp, filled with hundreds of people and tents in the campus courtyard. Some protesters offered Muslim prayers as the sun set over the campus, while others chanted “we are not leaving” or handed out protective goggles and surgical masks. They wore helmets and headscarves and discussed the best ways to deal with pepper spray or tear gas while someone sang into a megaphone.
Some built homemade shields out of plywood in case they clashed with police by forming skirmish lines elsewhere on campus. “For rubber bullets, who wants a shield?” shouted one protester.
Outside the camp, a crowd of students, alumni and neighbors gathered on the steps of the campus, joining in pro-Palestinian chants. A group of students holding signs and wearing T-shirts in support of Israel and the Jewish people demonstrated nearby.
The crowd grew as the night progressed, as more and more police arrived on campus.
Ray Wiliani, who lives nearby, said he came to UCLA on Wednesday night to support the pro-Palestinian protesters.
“We need to take a stand on this,” he said. “That’s enough.”
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block promised a review of Tuesday night’s events after California Gov. Gavin Newsom denounced the delays. The head of the University of California system, Michael Drake, ordered an “independent review of the university’s planning, its actions and the response of law enforcement authorities.”
“The community needs to feel that the police are protecting them, not allowing others to harm them,” Rebecca Husaini, chief of staff at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said at a news conference on the Los Angeles campus on Wednesday.
Elsewhere, New Hampshire police said they made 90 arrests and dismantled tents at Dartmouth College and officers in Oregon entered the Portland State University campus as school officials tried to break up the library occupation that began on Monday.
New York police stormed a building occupied by war protesters at Columbia University on Tuesday night, breaking up a demonstration that brought the school to a standstill.
At the University of Wisconsin in Madison, a riot broke out Wednesday morning after police with shields removed all but one of the tents and pushed back protesters. Four police officers were injured, including a state trooper who was struck in the head with a skateboard, authorities said. Four were accused of assaulting law enforcement officers.
At Brown University in Rhode Island, administrators agreed to consider a vote to divest from Israel in October — apparently the first U.S. college to agree to such a demand.
In rare cases, university officials and protest leaders have reached agreements to restrict disruption of campus life and upcoming graduation ceremonies.
The Associated Press has recorded at least 38 times since April 18 where arrests have been made at campus protests across the US. More than 1,600 people were arrested in 30 schools.
National campus demonstrations began in Columbia on April 17 to protest Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which followed Hamas’ deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7. Militants killed around 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took around 250 hostages. Promising to eradicate Hamas, Israel killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local Ministry of Health.
Israel and its supporters have called the university protests anti-Semitic, while Israel’s critics say the country uses such allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making anti-Semitic comments or violent threats, protest organizers, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.
Meanwhile, protest camps elsewhere have been cleared by police, resulting in arrests, or voluntarily closed at schools across the U.S., including The City College of New York, Fordham University in New York, Portland State in Oregon, Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff , Arizona and Tulane University in New Orleans.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
