Students start wave of protests over Gaza at UK universities after US crackdown

Demonstrations had been scheduled to take place in at least six universities as war rages on in Gaza

Students joined pro-Palestine protests and encampments at universities in the UK on Wednesday following violent demonstrations at campuses in the US.

Demonstrations took place at several universities including Sheffield, Bristol, Leeds and Newcastle, and others were expected to join them.

The protests came following violent clashes on the University of California campus between pro-Palestinian protesters and a group of counter-demonstrators, hours after police stormed Columbia University and arrested dozens of students.

At Goldsmiths University in south London, students have been occupying buildings - including the library - for weeks.

On Tuesday, video shared online showed students holding a rally in a courtyard at the university and chanting “no justice, no peace, if you don’t give us justice then you don’t get no peace”.

Students also occupied the library and demanded to meet with senior management to discuss their protests and the war in Gaza.

“I think a lot of people are really inspired by what’s going on in the US,” Samira, a 24-year-old sociology student and member of Goldsmiths For Palestine, told The Independent.

Students hold a pro-Palestine rally at Goldsmiths ( @goldsmithsforpalestine)

“We feel a duty as students to come out and protest when you’re seeing like, fellow students in the US…smashed up by riots, and all of that, but, yeah…I think people are really inspired.”

Students at the University of Bristol, University of Leeds, and Newcastle University set up tents in demonstrations on Wednesday.

Bristol students said they staged the action “in protest of the university’s complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians,” while Apartheid Off Campus Newcastle said its demonstration was to “highlight the institution’s investment strategy and its complicity in the Israeli military’s war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.”

Protests were due to take place in at least six universities (Bristol Student Occupation for a Free PalestineApartheid Off Campus Newcastle/)

In the US, police arrested some 35 people at California State Polytechnic University, Humbold yesterday after pro-Palestinian protesters barricaded themselves inside the dean’s office.

The students had been occupying Siemens Hall since 22 April.

Overnight, hundreds of police officers dressed in riot gear stormed Columbia, where campus protesters had occupied Hamilton Hall since Monday.

They later used a SWAT ramp, attached to the roof of a truck, to enter the barricaded building and 109 people were arrested.

A further 173 arrests were made at the City College of New York, wher demonstrations have also taken place.