Rival pro and anti-war protesters in Gaza have clashed in Los Angeles as Police intervened to clear encampments across several universities in the United States.
Hundreds of people were arrested in connection with pro-Palestinian protests this week at Columbia University — where an entire building was occupied before police cleared it — and at the City College of New York, police said.
The NYPD’s deputy commissioner for public information, Tarik Sheppard, told NBC News this morning that 230 people were arrested at Columbia, between 40 and 50 of whom were at the occupied Hamilton Hall, while the rest were arrested at CCNY.
Police have not identified any of those arrested nor provided details on any charges.
Rival groups that had earlier been involved in violent confrontations appeared to have been separated by a line of police officers by 2 a.m. (5 a.m. ET).
The scene is less chaotic than earlier, but a vocal group of protesters still refuses to leave despite police calls for them to go home.
Footage broadcast by the Reuters news agency showed a police officer saying through a loudspeaker “the encampment is over for tonight,” urging people to leave.
But the pro-Palestinian group chanted in response: “We’re not leaving, you don’t scare us.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass strongly condemned the violence at UCLA overnight, calling it “absolutely abhorrent and inexcusable.”
She confirmed that the LAPD is now at the campus.
It’s unclear why law enforcement were not sent into tackle the unfolding situation sooner. NBC Los Angeles reported that counter-protesters arrived just before 11 p.m. (2 a.m. ET), before clashes broke out and items were thrown between the rival groups.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has described Gaza as “the world’s number one issue” in a post on X today, while commenting on ongoing campus protests across the United States.
Khamenei said that Israel and “their American and European supporters” were working to drop Gaza “from the agenda of world public opinion,” but “they will not be able to do so.”
“Look at what is happening in American and European universities,” he added.
