Violence on US campuses. Pro-Palestinian students erected barricades, police intervened in force. 1,600 young people arrested

Tensions are rising in the United States, where pro-Palestinian students continue to protest the war in the Gaza Strip. Hundreds of police officers try to disperse the crowd gathered on the campus of the University of California in Los Angeles. The students set up barricades in a tent camp at the site of fighting that lasted several hours yesterday.

“A wonderful thing to watch,” former President Donald Trump commented on the intervention of the police, who evacuated the area. He called the young people there Hamas sympathizers and described them as raging madmen.

Protests have engulfed dozens of American universities in recent days, and in total, 1,600 young people have been arrested on 30 campuses.

Hundreds of police officers with helmets made their way on Thursday morning in the central square of the University of California, in Los Angeles, in an attempt to disperse a camp of pro-Palestinian protesters attacked the previous night by pro-Israeli supporters, reports Reuters. Police began removing pro-Palestinian student barricades in Los Angeles. The police action at UCLA marks the latest confrontation amid rising tensions on US college campuses, where protests over Israel’s handling of the Gaza war have led to clashes between students and law enforcement.

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Starting Wednesday evening, agents in tactical gear began to gather on the UCLA campus adjacent to a tent complex occupied by crowds of demonstrators, according to images from the scene.

Local television station KABC-TV estimated that between 300 and 500 people were inside the camp, with another 2,000 gathered beyond the barricades. But police assembled in the area stood for hours at the edge of the tent area before finally starting to make their way into the camp around 3:15 a.m. PDT (10:15 GMT) to arrest the occupants who they refused to leave. The raid was led by a team of California Highway Patrol officers equipped with shields and batons.

The demonstrators, some carrying makeshift shields and umbrellas, tried to block the advance of the police by sheer force of their numbers as they shouted “push them back” and tried to blind the police with flashlights.

Some protesters were seen wearing goggles and masks in anticipation of the siege, a day after the university declared the camp illegal.

Before the assault, the police urged the demonstrators, in repeated announcements through loudspeakers, to vacate the protest area, a square the size of a football field.
UCLA has canceled all classes for Wednesday.

Publisher: GM