Groups of protesters have clashed overnight at a pro-Palestinian camp at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) — while 280 people have been arrested at similar encampments in New York.
More than 1,000 people have so far been arrested across the United States amid growing protests that have spread to Australian universities.
Witness footage from UCLA, verified by Reuters, showed people wielding sticks or poles to hammer on wooden boards being used as makeshift barricades to protect the pro-Palestinian protesters before police were deployed to the campus.
The October 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip and the ensuing Israeli offensive on the Palestinian enclave has unleashed the biggest outpouring of US student activism since the anti-racism protests of 2020.
As student rallies have spread to dozens of schools across the US in recent days expressing opposition to Israel's war in Gaza, police have been called in to quell or clear protests.
The student protests in the United States have also taken on political overtones in the run-up to the presidential election in November, with Republicans accusing some university administrators of turning a blind eye to anti-Semitic rhetoric and harassment.
Protesters at UCLA report violent attacks
On Tuesday, UCLA officials announced that the encampment was unlawful and violated university policy. UCLA Chancellor Gene Brock said it included people "unaffiliated with our campus", though he provided no evidence of the presence of outsiders.
Footage from the early hours of Wednesday morning showed mostly male counter-demonstrators, many of them masked and some apparently older than students, throwing objects and trying to smash or pull down the wooden and steel barriers erected to shield the encampment.
Some screamed pro-Jewish comments as pro-Palestinian protesters tried to fight them off.
"They were coming up here and just violently attacking us," said pro-Palestinian protester Kaia Shah, a researcher at UCLA.
"I just didn't think they would ever get to this, escalate to this level, where our protest is met by counter-protesters who are violently hurting us, inflicting pain on us, when we are not doing anything to them."
Police said they had responded to a request from UCLA to restore order and maintain public safety "due to multiple acts of violence" within the encampment.
Broadcast footage later showed police clearing a central quad beside the encampment.
280 arrested in New York
On Tuesday night local time, New York police arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators holed up in a building at Columbia University and removed a protest encampment that the Ivy League college had sought to dismantle for nearly two weeks.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said that about 170 of the 280 arrested at Columbia University and City College have received summonses.
The remaining 100 or so cases will be making their way through the court system, with the earliest arraignments later Wednesday afternoon and into the evening local time.
It is not yet known how many of those arrested were students and how many weren't affiliated with the colleges, he said.
New York mayor Eric Adams told reporters that the occupation of the building at Columbia was led by people not affiliated with the university.
"While those who broke into the building did include students, it was led by individuals who were not affiliated with the university," Mr Adams said.
"Students have a right to protest and free speech is a cornerstone of our society ... it was external actors who hijacked peaceful protests and influenced students to escalate."
As police stepped in, students standing outside the hall — the site of various student occupations dating back to the 1960s — jeered at police with shouts of "shame, shame!".
Police loaded dozens of detainees onto a bus, their hands bound behind their backs with zip-ties, the scene illuminated with the flashing red and blue lights of police vehicles.
Sueda Polat of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the coalition of student groups that organised the protests, said they did not pose any danger.
Another protest leader, Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian attending Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, denied that outsiders had been among the organisers, as did many other students.
Students had, however, posted videos of visits to the camp by supporters and activists not enrolled at or employed by Columbia, and said they had contacted alumni from major protests at the university in 1968 to learn about their strategies.
Mr Shafik said the occupiers had vandalised university property and were trespassing. The university earlier warned that students taking part in the occupation faced academic expulsion.
Police were also called in to clear encampments and make arrests overnight at Tulane University in New Orleans, University of Arizona and City College of New York in Harlem.
Dozens were arrested at City College, the New York Times reported.
Reuters/ABC
