Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters clash at University of California, Los Angeles

Skirmishes broke out at the University of California, Los Angeles on Sunday as pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters rallied on campus where a Palestinian solidarity encampment was set up earlier this week.

On Sunday, thousands of demonstrators including students and outside members from the wider Los Angeles community showed up on campus, with many waving Palestinian and Israeli flags as others chanted into microphones.

According to UCLA’s student-led newspaper, Daily Bruin, the mass crowd consisted of four protests. Various organizations showed up in solidarity with the protests. According to Reuters, members from the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice planned to support the students’ right to protest. The Palestinian Youth Movement also rallied in solidarity with the encampments, the Daily Bruin reported.

Earlier this week, UCLA students joined thousands of protesters across the country by setting up a Palestinian solidarity encampment on campus, calling for the university to divest from Israel and for a ceasefire in Gaza. Since Hamas’s killing of more than 1,100 Israelis and kidnapping of over 240 hostages last October, Israel has launched a deadly war on Gaza, killing more than 34,000 Palestinians while forcibly displacing over 2 million survivors amid a famine due to Israeli aid restrictions.

Israel has also destroyed every university in Gaza, in addition to killing at least 5,479 students, 261 teachers and 95 university professors, according to the UN, which has condemned Israel’s actions as “scholasticide”.

In a statement posted on Instagram, UCLA’s Students for Justice in Palestine and the UC Divest Coalition at UCLA posted a list of demands to the university. Those include withdrawing all UC-wide and UCLA Foundation funds from companies and institutions that are “complicit in the Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide of the Palestinian people,” as well as ending the “targeted repression and policing of pro-Palestinian advocacy on campus and sever[ing] all ties with the [Los Angeles police department]”.

Videos posted online showed pro-Palestinian demonstrators on Sunday waving signs including “Stop killing children in Gaza” while chanting “Ceasefire now!” Other videos showed the student encampment, which has expanded significantly in recent days, now stretching between UCLA’s Royce Hall and Powell Library. In a social media post by UCLA’s Jewish Voice for Peace chapter, the organization said, “Join us at Royce to protect our students at the UCLA Palestine solidarity encampment.” One photo appeared to show several demonstrators hoisting a Palestinian flag at the top of Powell Library.

Meanwhile, pro-Israeli counter-protesters led by the Israeli American Council demonstrated across the Palestinian solidarity encampment, with many waving Israeli and American flags. According to the Daily Bruin, a singer performed The Star Spangled Banner and the Israeli national anthem Hatikvah. At one point Elan Carr, IAC’S CEO, addressed the crowd, saying, “We will take back our campuses, from Columbia to UCLA and everywhere in between,” the outlet reports, adding that other speakers included the Anti-Defamation League CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt.

At one point, videos posted online showed skirmishes breaking out between protesters and counter-protesters, with some breaching metal barricades. One video showed groups of protesters and counter-protesters clashing, shouting and shoving each other, with at least one person punching someone else.

The Daily Bruin reported counter-protesters attempting to breach the barriers set up by students inside the encampment. The outlet also reported one of its reporters being hit in the face with a flag as some skirmishes turned violent. Videos online showed multiple police officers in riot gear including helmets and batons. As police officers marched through campus, several individuals could be heard clapping and chanting, “About time, baby!” and “LAPD, we love you!”

Following the skirmishes, Mary Osako, UCLA’s vice-chancellor for strategic communications, said, “This morning, a group of demonstrators breached a barrier that the university had established separating two groups of protesters on our campus, resulting in physical altercations. UCLA has a long history of being a place of peaceful protest, and we are heartbroken about the violence that broke out.”