Police removed barricades and began dismantling a fortified encampment by pro-Palestinian demonstrators early Thursday at UCLA after hundreds of protesters defied orders to leave.
Tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies they say support the war in Gaza have spread across campuses nationwide in a student movement unlike any other this century.
Get up to speed:
- Other campuses: More than 1,750 protesters have been arrested over the last two weeks on universities across the U.S., including the University of Texas at Austin, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt.
- Israel-Hamas war: The students are protesting the war’s death toll and are calling for universities to separate themselves from any companies that are advancing Israel’s military efforts in Gaza.
At least 1,945 people have been arrested at campus protests across the U.S. since April 18, including 10 arrests made at the University of South Florida on Tuesday after police deployed tear gas.
In New York, Stony Brook University officials said 29 people were arrested early Thursday morning, including students, faculty members and others not affiliated with the school. School administrators said the protests began peacefully but escalated to include intimidation, harassment and an encampment.
Seventeen people were arrested on criminal trespass charges Wednesday at the University of Texas at Dallas after demonstrators refused to comply with orders from law enforcement to take down an encampment built on the school’s main walkway, a university spokeswoman said in a statement Thursday.
