Violence erupts between pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UCLA

LOS ANGELES (KTLA) – Dueling groups of protesters clashed Wednesday at the University of California, Los Angeles, grappling in fistfights and shoving, kicking and using sticks to beat one another. 

The clashes at UCLA took place around a tent encampment built by pro-Palestinian protesters, who erected barricades and plywood for protection — while counter-protesters tried to pull them down. Video showed fireworks exploding over and in the encampment. People threw chairs and at one point a group piled on a person who lay on the ground, kicking and beating them with sticks until others pulled them out of the scrum.

After a couple of hours of scuffles, police wearing helmets and face shields formed lines and slowly separated the groups. That appeared to quell the violence. Officers from the California Highway Patrol also appeared to be there. The university said it had requested help.

UCLA campus police and medical personnel had showed up briefly at the scene before retreating, Nexstar's KTLA reported.

Aerial footage from the station captured the chaotic scene, including countless clashes between protesters. The number of people injured and the severity of the injuries were unclear.

The encampment, populated by protesters demanding UCLA divest all interests in Israel, now occupies portions of the steps and sidewalks of Powell Library and Royce Hall.  

Dueling demonstrations have been heated at times, but Tuesday night’s clash marked the greatest escalation to date.

“Horrific acts of violence occurred at the encampment tonight and we immediately called law enforcement for mutual aid support,” Mary Osako, a senior UCLA official, told the campus newspaper the Daily Bruin.

Before the escalation

Earlier in the day, Luke Veltz attempted to donate snacks and drinks to those in the encampment. While he’s not a student, he told KTLA that he supports calls for the university to divest from Israel and hopes for an end to the war and a free Palestinian state.  

“When you’ve had genocide carry on for this long, people are just not going to be able to live side by side with two governments in the way that it’s been suggested, and I think that a free Palestine is the only way forward,” he said.

Counter-protesters calling for the release of Israeli hostages taken captive on Oct. 7 by Hamas have used screens and speakers to blast images and stories of survivors just feet away from the encampment. 

“I think this is blatant antisemitism,” one young man, who was not identified, told KTLA. “This is crazy what’s going on, what they’re letting go on. They’re chanting to kill us. They’re chanting ‘from the river to the sea,’ which is just blatantly to kill us all. I wanted to see what’s going on and it’s scary.” 

On Tuesday morning, protesters chanted “Let him go!” as a demonstrator carrying a Palestinian flag — who had scaled the scaffolding of a building near the encampment — was arrested.  

The demonstrator was later released.  

Vandals also sprayed graffiti on the doors of Royce Hall.  

On Tuesday morning, a man on crutches who claimed to be an alumnus and was not part of either protest was tackled by UCLA security after trying to access a public walkway outside the encampment, Fenoglio reported.  

“I told them I was disabled,” he said. “They said that I was trying to use [my crutches] as a weapon. It was on the ground behind me. It was insane. "

There were also reports of demonstrators in the encampment blocking students from getting to class.  

The university called this kind of behavior “abhorrent” and said these actions could lead to “suspension or expulsion.” 

On Monday night, campus police broke up several fights after a group of about 60 pro-Israel demonstrators tried to push through the encampment’s barricade.  

University officials ultimately decided to close Royce Hall until Friday and Powell Library until Monday.  

Over at the University of Southern California, the main commencement ceremony remains canceled, though smaller graduation ceremonies will take place across campus.  

University President Carol Folt released a statement, saying in part: 

“USC remains committed to free speech and peaceful protests while ensuring public safety.”  

Folt also said she is in direct talks with the representatives from the pro-Palestinian group Divest from Death USC, which has established an encampment in Alumni Park.  

The park erupted into a chaotic scene last week after the university called on the Los Angeles Police Department to forcibly remove protesters.  

Protests on other campuses

Police have swept through other campuses across the U.S. over the last two weeks, leading to confrontations and more than 1,000 arrests. In rarer instances, university officials and protest leaders struck agreements to restrict the disruption to campus life and upcoming commencement ceremonies.

Just blocks away from Columbia, at The City College of New York, demonstrators were in a standoff with police outside the public college’s main gate. Video posted on social media by news reporters showed officers putting some people on the ground and shoving others as they cleared people from the street and sidewalks late on Tuesday. Many detained protesters were driven away on city buses.

After police arrived, officers lowered a Palestinian flag atop the City College flagpole, balled it up and tossed it to the ground before raising an American flag.

Brown University, another member of the Ivy League, reached an agreement Tuesday with protesters on its Rhode Island campus. Demonstrators said they would close their encampment in exchange for administrators taking a vote to consider divestment from Israel in October. The compromise appeared to mark the first time a U.S. college has agreed to vote on divestment in the wake of the protests.

Columbia's police action happened on the 56th anniversary of a similar move to quash an occupation of Hamilton Hall by students protesting racism and the Vietnam War.

The police department earlier Tuesday said officers wouldn't enter the grounds without the college administration’s request or an imminent emergency. Now, law enforcement will be there through May 17, the end of the university's commencement events.

In a letter to senior NYPD officials, Columbia President Minouche Shafik said the administration made the request that police remove protesters from the occupied building and a nearby tent encampment “with the utmost regret.”

Shafik also referenced the idea, first put forward by New York City Mayor Eric Adams earlier in the day, that the group that occupied Hamilton was “led by individuals who are not affiliated with the university.”

Neither provided specific evidence to back up that contention, which was disputed by protest organizers and participants.

NYPD officials made similar claims about “outside agitators” during the huge, grassroots demonstrations against racial injustice that erupted across the city after the death of George Floyd in 2020. In some instances, top police officials falsely labeled peaceful marches organized by well-known neighborhood activists as the work of violent extremists.

Before officers arrived at Columbia, the White House condemned the standoffs there and at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, where protesters had occupied two buildings for more than a week until officers with batons intervened early Tuesday and arrested 25 people.

President Joe Biden believes students occupying an academic building is “absolutely the wrong approach,” said National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.

Later, former President Donald Trump called into Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News to comment on Columbia’s turmoil as live footage of police clearing Hamilton Hall aired. Trump praised the officers.

“But it should never have gotten to this,” he told Hannity.

The nationwide campus protests began at Columbia in response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza after Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. Militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to stamp out Hamas, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry.

As cease-fire negotiations appeared to gain steam, it wasn’t clear whether those talks would inspire an easing of protests.

Israel and its supporters have branded the university protests as antisemitic, while Israel’s critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.

On Columbia’s campus, protesters first set up a tent encampment almost two weeks ago. The school sent in police to clear the tents the following day, arresting more than 100 people, only for the students to return.

Negotiations between the protesters and the college came to a standstill in recent days, and the school set a deadline for the activists to abandon the tent encampment Monday afternoon or be suspended.

Instead, protesters defied the ultimatum and took over Hamilton Hall early Tuesday, carrying in furniture and metal barricades.

Ilana Lewkovitch, a self-described “leftist Zionist” student at Columbia, said it’s been hard to concentrate on school for weeks. Her exams have been disrupted with chants of “say it loud, say it clear, we want Zionists out of here.”

Lewkovitch, who is Jewish, said she wished the current pro-Palestinian protests were more open to people like her who criticize Israel’s war policies but believe there should be an Israeli state.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.