Campus protests live: Police clear UCLA encampment and arrest Gaza demonstrators after refusing to disperse

Hundreds of helmeted police muscled their way into a central plaza of the University of California at Los Angeles early on Thursday to dismantle a pro-Palestinian protest camp attacked the previous night by pro-Israel supporters.

Live TV footage showed about six protesters under arrest, kneeling on the ground, their hands bound behind their backs with zip-ties.

Dozens of loud explosions were heard during the clash from flash-bang charges, or stun grenades, fired by police.

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. Others on the opposite side of the camp gave up quickly, and were seen walking away with their hands over their heads under police escort.

Around sunset on Wednesday, officers in tactical gear had begun filing onto the UCLA campus and taking up positions adjacent to a complex of tents occupied by throngs of demonstrators, live footage from the scene showed.

The assembled police stood by on the periphery for hours before finally starting to force their way into the encampment around 3:15 a.m. PDT, tearing down barricades and arresting occupants who refused to leave.

Displaced Palestinians in Gaza have expressed their gratitude for pro-Palestinian campus protests in the US, the Associated Press reports.

The ongoing Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 people, many of them women and children, and aid blockages have resulted in a famine in northern Gaza. The attacks come after 7 October, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking another 250 people hostage.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive Democrat from New York, told The Independent’s Eric Garcia she is concerned about setting a dangerous precedent regarding the use of force against protesters.

“We are concerned about setting a very dangerous precedent of introducing violent forms of enforcement on those demonstrations that, on the whole, are truly peaceful,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez said on Wednesday.

Stories about campus unrest have captured the attention of newsrooms across the US, but US Senator Bernie Sanders called on media members not to stop covering the underlying Israel-Hamas war, or inquiring about the overwhelmingly Palestinian civilian death toll.

“I suggest to CNN and maybe some of my colleagues here, maybe take your cameras, just for a moment, off of Columbia and UCLA ,” the Vermont senator said in a floor speech. “Maybe go to Gaza, and take your camera show us the emaciated children who are dying from malnutrition because of Netanyahu’s policies.”