Hundreds of helmeted police muscled their way into a central plaza of the University of California at Los Angeles early on Thursday in a move to disperse a pro-Palestinian protest camp attacked the previous night by pro-Israel supporters.
The pre-dawn police crackdown at UCLA marked the latest flashpoint for mounting tensions on U.S. college campuses, where protests over Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza have led to student clashes with each other and law enforcement.
Live footage from the scene showed that officers in tactical gear began filing onto the UCLA campus adjacent to a complex of tents occupied by throngs of demonstrators around sunset on Wednesday.
Local television station KABC-TV estimated that 300 to 500 people were hunkered down inside the camp, while around 2,000 more had gathered outside the barricades in support.
But the assembled police stood by on the periphery of the tents for hours before finally starting to force their way into the encampment around 3:15 a.m. PDT (1015 GMT) to arrest occupants who refused to leave. The raid was led by a phalanx of California Highway Patrol officers carrying shields and batons.
Demonstrators, some carrying makeshift shields and umbrellas, sought to block the officers’ advance by their sheer numbers while shouting, “push them back,” and flashing bright lights in the eyes of the police.
Protesters prepared for clashes with police
Some protesters had been seen donning hard hats, goggles, and respirator masks in anticipation of the siege a day after the university declared the encampment unlawful.
Hundreds of other pro-Palestinian activists who assembled outside the tent city jeered police with shouts of “shame on you,” some banging on drums and waving Palestinian flags, as officers marched onto the campus grounds. Many wore the traditional Palestinian scarves called keffiyehs.
A much smaller group of demonstrators waving Israeli flags urged the police to shut down the encampment, yelling, “Hey hey, ho-ho, the occupation has got to go.”
Prior to moving in, police urged demonstrators in repeated loudspeaker announcements to clear the protest zone, occupying a plaza about the size of a football field between the landmark twin-tower auditorium Royce Hall and the main undergraduate library.
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