Pro-Palestinian protesters occupy Amsterdam university after clashes

AMSTERDAM: Pro-Palestinian protesters were occupying a University of Amsterdam (UvA) site on Wednesday, a day after police clashed with protesters in the Dutch capital and broke up an earlier encampment at the university.

Police said the UvA had not asked them to stop the protest, contrary to early on Tuesday when riot police used a bulldozer to knock down barricades at UvA and detained 169 people at a different campus.

UvA said in a statement just after midnight that it would like to find a solution with the students who have been protesting since Monday, adding that it has “caused considerable damage” to its buildings.

The university will keep several locations closed on Wednesday due to the blockades. Students have protested against academic ties with Israel and condemned the university’s response. UvA has accused some protesters of intimidating behaviour, and video captured violent clashes between pro- and anti-Palestinian protesters.

At the University of Utrecht, some 40 km (25 miles) south of Amsterdam, local police ended a pro-Palestinian demonstration at the University library, the police said in a statement.

In neighbouring Belgium, Brussels University (ULB) will file a police complaint against students involved in a violent protest against Israel’s war in Gaza, including an assault on the Jewish students union leader, rector Annemie Schaus said.

“A complaint will be filed because there were acts of violence, and in particular against the president (of the Union of Jewish Students of Belgium). And I cannot tolerate that,” she said. The complaint will seek to hold the perpetrators accountable for their actions, Schaus added.

She said calm returned to the ULB campus on Tuesday after security services intervened to stop what witnesses told local media was an assault on the Jewish students union chief, with a few protesters shouting antisemitic slurs.

The Union of Jewish Students of Belgium condemned the assault. Its leader was not seriously injured. Belgian newspaper Le Soir said students continue to occupy some areas of the university and that a dialogue between them and the university was continuing. There were no immediate plans to eject the camped-out students.