War on Gaza: Skirmishes at duelling protests at UCLA as US campus tensions rise

Skirmishes broke out between pro-Palestinian protesters and pro-Israel counterprotesters at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) on Sunday, as demonstrations over the war in Gaza continue to flare across US campuses.

The tone turned ugly at around midday when a group of protesters broke through a barrier that separated them the rival crowds, and began shoving and shouting, and in some cases trading punches.

Security guards attempted to keep the two sides separated, while campus police stood by and watched.

According to videos published on social media, some of the pro-Israel counterprotesters could be heard shouting racial slurs at the pro-Palestine crowd, whilst others were filmed calling for pro-Palestinian female supporters to be raped.

The demonstrations involved at least some people from outside the university, which issued a statement on Sunday saying it had allowed the two groups on campus to express their views.

"This morning, a group of demonstrators breached a barrier that the university had established separating two groups of protestors on our campus, resulting in physical altercations,'' Mary Osako, vice chancellor of UCLA Strategic Communications, said in a statement.

"UCLA has a long history of being a place of peaceful protest, and we are heartbroken about the violence that broke out.

"We have since instituted additional security measures and increased the numbers of our safety team members on site."

Protests spread

In the past two weeks, pro-Palestinian protests have spread to college campuses across the US following the mass arrest of over 100 people at Columbia University - when the school's president asked New York police to enter the campus to dismantle an encampment of tents set up by the protesters on the main lawn.

Since then, hundreds of protesters from California and Texas to Atlanta and Boston have been arrested as they emulated the encampments used by Columbia students to call attention to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Administrators, including those of Columbia, have said the protests, as unauthorised, break school rules, disrupt learning and have fostered harassment and antisemitism.

Students opposed to Israel's war on Gaza are demanding that their respective schools to divest investments from Israel or from companies that are profiting off of Israel's war in Gaza and Israel's wider abuses against Palestinians.

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Another one of the demands is for schools to cut ties with Israeli academic institutions, which they say have played a key role in Israel's occupation of Palestine.

Pfizer College in California recently shut down its study abroad programme with the University of Haifa after concluding that the partnership did not align with the college's core values.

Over the course of the weekend, more than 200 people were arrested at a handful of schools, including Washington University in St Louis. Among those arrested at Washington University was 2024 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.

"They are sending in the riot police and basically creating a riot in an otherwise peaceful demonstration. So this is just shameful," Stein said in a statement.

Since the events of 7 October, when a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel killed 1,150 and resulted in more than 200 people being taken back to Gaza as hostages, the Strip has been under total siege and deprived of basic necessities while facing a devastating bombing campaign by Israel.

More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed and around 1.7m displaced, in what has been described at the International Court of Justice in January as a plausible genocide.