AMSTERDAM/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Dutch riot police clashed with barricaded protesters at the University of Amsterdam on Wednesday, while police in several U.S. cities arrested scores of demonstrators and dismantled encampments overnight at universities, as student-led protests against Israel’s war in Gaza continued roiling campuses across both continents.
In Amsterdam, protesters atop makeshift barriers of desks, fences, bricks and wooden pallets aimed fire extinguishers at police, local television showed. Officers struck protesters with batons and knocked down the barricades within minutes, dragging many people away as hundreds of others shouted “Shame on you!”
At George Washington University in Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Police Department said it had arrested 33 people, including some for allegedly assaulting a police officer. Video showed officers took down tents and deployed pepper spray and cleared demonstrators from campus and the surrounding streets, a few blocks away from the White House.
Police Chief Pamela Smith said at a news conference that authorities had seen “an escalation in the volatility of the protests” over the last few days, prompting police and the university to make the decision to remove the encampment.
Smith and Mayor Muriel Bowser had been scheduled to testify to Congress later on Wednesday about why they had previously declined to clear the encampment, but the hearing was canceled after the police raid.
At the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, police arrested more than 130 people and removed an encampment after the school’s chancellor, Javier Reyes, said he had summoned police “as a last resort.”
“This is not the outcome we had hoped for,” he added.
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The state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union criticized the move, saying “calling heavily armed police on student political expression is an inherently dangerous choice.” The school’s Students for Justice in Palestine group posted video showing protesters thrown to the ground and faculty members among those arrested.
In New York, police arrested dozens of demonstrators at the Fashion Institute of Technology, according to video posted on social media.
DIVESTMENT DEMANDS
Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gazan authorities, and triggered a catastrophic humanitarian crisis and famine threatening the enclave’s 2.5…
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