NEW YORK - Violence broke out on May 1 around pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as universities around the United States struggle to contain similar protests on dozens of campuses.

Videos posted on social media showed clashes involving protesters, firecrackers exploding near groups of demonstrators, and people spraying what appeared to be irritant sprays at one another.

Some people were also seen tearing down metal barricades surrounding the encampment.

“Horrific acts of violence occurred at the encampment tonight, and we immediately called law enforcement for mutual aid support,” Ms Mary Osako, a vice-chancellor at the university, said an e-mailed statement.

“The fire department and medical personnel are on the scene,” she added. “We are sickened by this senseless violence and it must end.”

The Los Angeles police were “responding immediately” to a request for support from the university, according to the office of the Los Angeles mayor, Ms Karen Bass.

The violence at UCLA comes as the New York City police raided Columbia University late on April 30 to arrest dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, some of whom had seized an academic building, and to remove a protest encampment the Ivy League school had sought to dismantle for nearly two weeks.

Shortly after police moved in, Columbia University president Minouche Shafik released a letter in which she requested police stay on campus until at least May 17 – two days after graduation – “to maintain order and ensure that encampments are not re-established”.

Within three hours the campus had been cleared of protesters, said a police spokesperson, adding “dozens” of arrests were made.

At the start of the raid around 9pm ET (9am on May 1 in Singapore), throngs of helmeted police marched onto the elite campus in upper Manhattan, a focal point of student rallies that have spread to dozens of schools across the US in recent days expressing opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza.

“We’re clearing it out,” police officers yelled as they marched up to the barricaded entrance of Hamilton Hall, an academic building that protesters had broken into and seized control of in the early morning hours of April 30.

Soon after, a long line of officers climbed into Hamilton Hall. Police entered through a second-storey window using a police vehicle equipped with a ladder.

Students standing outside the hall jeered police with shouts of “Shame, shame!”

Police were seen loading dozens of detainees onto a bus, each with their hands bound behind their backs by zip-ties, the entire scene illuminated with flashing red and blue lights of police vehicles.

“Free, free, free Palestine,” chanted protesters outside the building. Others yelled: “Let the students go.”

“Columbia will be proud of these students in five years,” said Ms Sweda Polat, one of the student negotiators for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the coalition of student groups that has organised the protests.

She said students did not pose a danger and called on police to back down, speaking as officers shouted at her and others to retreat or leave campus.

Protest demands

Protesters were seeking three demands from Columbia: divestment from companies supporting Israel’s government, greater transparency in university finances, and amnesty for students and faculty disciplined over the protests.

President Shafik this week said Columbia would not divest from finances in Israel. Instead, she offered to invest in health and education in Gaza and make Columbia’s direct investment holdings more transparent.

In her letter released on April 30, Ms Shafik said the Hamilton Hall occupiers had vandalised university property and were trespassing, and that encampment protesters were suspended for trespassing. The university had earlier warned that students taking part in the Hamilton Hall occupation faced academic expulsion.

The occupation began overnight when protesters broke windows, stormed inside and unfurled a banner reading “Hind’s Hall”, saying they were renaming the building for a 6-year-old Palestinian child killed in Gaza by the Israeli military.

The eight-storey, neo-classical building has been the site of various student occupations dating back to the 1960s.

At an evening news briefing held a few hours before police entered Columbia, Mayor Eric Adams and city police officials said the Hamilton Hall takeover was instigated by “outside agitators” who lacked any affiliation with Columbia and were known to law enforcement for provoking lawlessness.

Police said they based their conclusions in part on escalating tactics in the occupation, including vandalism, use of barricades to block entrances and destruction of security cameras.

Mr Adams suggested some of the student protesters were not fully aware of “external actors” in their midst.

“We cannot and will not allow what should be a peaceful gathering to turn into a violent spectacle that serves no purpose. We cannot wait until this situation becomes even more serious. This must end now,” the mayor said.

One of the student leaders of the protest, Mr Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian scholar attending Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs on a student visa, disputed assertions that outsiders had initiated the occupation.

“They’re students,” he told Reuters.

A day earlier, the university said it had begun suspending students who defied a deadline for vacating a tent camp that has become a focal point for dozens of student demonstrations around the US expressing opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza.

“Disruptions on campus have created a threatening environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty and a noisy distraction that interferes with the teaching, learning and preparing for final exams,” the university said in a statement on April 30.

The Oct 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants from Gaza, and the ensuing Israeli offensive on the Palestinian enclave, has unleashed the biggest outpouring of student activism since the anti-racism protests of 2020.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators also gathered at City College New York in Harlem, with the university ordering individuals off the campus, New York Police Department Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry said in a post on social media platform X. Dozens of protesters were arrested, The New York Times reported.

Mr Daughtry also said the university had requested police presence to assist in dispersing trespassers.

Many of the demonstrations have been met with counter-protesters accusing them of fomenting anti-Jewish hatred. The pro-Palestinian side, including Jews opposed to Israeli actions in Gaza, say they are being unfairly branded as anti-Semitic for criticising Israel’s government and expressing support for human rights.

In dealing with the protests, university officials have struggled to strike a balance between allowing freedom of expression and stamping out hate speech.

The issue has taken on political overtones in the run-up to the US presidential election in November, with Republicans accusing some university administrators of turning a blind eye to anti-Semitic rhetoric and harassment.

White House spokesperson John Kirby on April 30 denounced non-peaceful forms of student protests, calling the occupation of campus buildings “the wrong approach”.

New York Police Department officials had stressed before the sweep on the night of April 30 that officers would refrain from entering the campus unless Columbia administrators invited their presence, as they did on April 18, when NYPD officers removed an earlier encampment. More than 100 arrests were made at that time, stirring an outcry by many students and staff.

Dozens of tents, pitched on a hedge-lined grassy area – beside a smaller lawn since planted with hundreds of small Israeli flags – were put back up days later. REUTERS, AFP, NYTIMES