Pro-Palestinian protests at US universities show no sign of slowing after hundreds arrested
- Pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA tussle with Israel supporters as White House urges ‘peaceful’ protests
- Wave of demonstrations began at Columbia University in New York and have spread rapidly across the US
Protests at US universities showed no sign of slowing over the weekend, with more arrests on campuses across the country and skirmishes between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UCLA, where a tent encampment was set up last week.
As the size of the pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California at Los Angeles expanded in recent days, counterprotesters have become increasingly vocal and visible on the campus, although both sides remained peaceful until Sunday.
That changed when some demonstrators broke through a barrier that the school had set up to separate the two factions, Mary Osako, UCLA’s vice-chancellor for UCLA strategic communications, said.
Members of both factions shoved one another and shouted slogans and insults, and in some cases traded punches. Pushing and shoving persisted for some time among pockets of demonstrators, but campus police armed with batons eventually separated the sparring groups.
“UCLA has a long history of being a place of peaceful protest, and we are heartbroken about the violence that broke out,” Osako said in a statement.