UCLA cancels classes after violence erupts on campus over the war in Gaza

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Duelling groups of protesters clashed overnight at the University of California, Los Angeles, shoving, kicking and beating each other with sticks after pro-Israel demonstrators tried to pull down barricades surrounding a pro-Palestinian encampment.

Hours earlier, police burst into a building occupied by anti-war protesters at Columbia University, breaking up a demonstration that had paralysed the school.

After a couple of hours of scuffles between demonstrators at UCLA, police wearing helmets and face shields slowly separated the groups and quelled the violence. The scene was calm as day broke.

UCLA cancelled classes Wednesday and urged people to avoid the area where the fighting broke out. The school's library won't reopen until Monday and Royce Hall, which authorities said was vandalised, is closed through Friday. UCLA stationed law enforcement officers throughout campus.

Tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies that support the war in Gaza have spread across campuses nationwide in a student movement unlike any other this century. The ensuing police crackdowns echoed actions decades ago against a much larger protest movement protesting the Vietnam War.

There have been confrontations with law enforcement and more than 1,000 arrests. In rare instances, university officials and protest leaders struck agreements to restrict the disruption to campus life and upcoming commencement ceremonies.

The clashes at UCLA erupted as counter-protesters tried to pull down parade barricades, plywood and wooden pallets protecting a tent encampment built by pro-Palestinian protesters. Video showed fireworks exploding over and in the encampment.

People threw chairs and other objects. A group piled on one person who lay on the ground, kicking and beating them with sticks until others rescued them from the scrum.

People outside the encampment, one draped in an Israeli flag, played recordings of a variety of sounds, including a baby crying and sirens.

Authorities have not detailed injuries.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the violence "absolutely abhorrent and inexcusable" in a social media post and said city police were on the scene. California Highway Patrol officers also appeared to join. The university said it requested help.

A few dozen protesters at Columbia were arrested after shrugging off an earlier ultimatum to abandon the encampment Monday or face suspension, inspiring demonstrations on campuses elsewhere.

Fabien Lugo, a first-year accounting student who said he was not involved in the protests, said he opposed the university's decision to call in police.

"This is too intense," he said. "It feels like more of an escalation than a de-escalation."

Blocks away from Columbia, at The City College of New York, demonstrators were in a standoff with police outside the public college's main gate. Video posted on social media by reporters late Tuesday showed officers forcing some people to the ground and shoving others as they cleared the street and sidewalks.

After police arrived, officers lowered a Palestinian flag from the City College flagpole and tossed it to the ground before raising an American flag.

Brown University, another Ivy League school, reached an agreement Tuesday with protesters on its Rhode Island campus. Demonstrators said they would close their encampment if administrators consider divestment from Israel in October — apparently the first time a US college has agreed to protester demands to vote on divestment.

Meanwhile, at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, police in riot gear closed in on an encampment late Tuesday and arrested about 20 people for trespassing. University officials had warned that students would face criminal charges if they did not disperse.

California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, was tallying damage after police on Tuesday cleared protesters from two halls that they had occupied since early last week. Of those arrested, 13 are students, one is a faculty member and 18 are not students, the university said in a statement.

The nationwide campus protests began at Columbia in response to Israel's offensive in Gaza after Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7. Militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to stamp out Hamas, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there.

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