Police threaten pro-Palestine protesters with arrest in standoff at UCLA campus

By Emre Basaran

ISTANBUL (AA) — Students demonstrating against Israel's ongoing offensive in the Gaza Strip were threatened with arrest by US police at the University of California’s Los Angeles (UCLA) campus.

According to reports on local media, police wearing riot gear came to UCLA campus and ordered pro-Palestine protesters, who had set up a protest encampment, to leave the area or face arrest.

On loudspeaker, police ordered demonstrators to clear the area "immediately," and announced that those who fail to do so would be arrested, the daily Los Angeles Times said in a report.

While the protest at UCLA had been "relatively mild" compared to other campuses, according to the report, a large group of masked pro-Israel counter-protesters later arrived at the site, tearing down barricades and surrounding the encampment.

After the attack reportedly went on for three hours, officers from the California Highway Patrol, Los Angeles Police Department and other agencies arrived on the scene and "restored order," the LA Times reported, adding that the "slow response sparked criticism and calls for investigations."

Amid ongoing demonstrations at universities across the US in solidarity with Palestine, US police have arrested hundreds of students this week as university campus administrators seek to repress pro-Palestinian encampments and protests.

The demonstrations started on April 17 at Columbia University to protest Israel's offensive in Gaza, in which more than 34,500 Palestinians have been killed and 77,700 injured since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

They quickly spread to other campuses including Yale and Harvard.

The University of California, Los Angeles, emerged Wednesday as another sticking point between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and the police as law enforcement, some wearing riot gear, entered the campus.

The police asked demonstrators to clear out the area to avoid arrest, which they refused.