School officials said more than 200 people were arrested.
New York:
The pro-Palestinian protests that have rocked American campuses for weeks moderated Friday after a series of clashes with police, mass arrests and a stern directive from the White House to restore order.
Police in Manhattan cleared an encampment at New York University after dawn, with video posted by an official on social media showing protesters leaving their tents and dispersing when ordered to do so.
The scene appeared relatively calm compared to the crackdown on other campuses in the country – and some worldwide – where protests over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza have increased in recent weeks.
University administrators, who have tried to balance the right to protest with complaints of violence and hate speech, have increasingly called on police to clear protesters ahead of end-of-year exams and graduation ceremonies.
At the University of Chicago, the school’s president said talks with protesters on a compromise had failed and indicated the university could intervene in an encampment there as a result.
The news came on the same day that dozens of American flag-waving counter-protesters showed up and confronted the school’s pro-Palestinian group, but police separated the two sides, local media reported.
More than 2,000 arrests have been made in the United States in the past two weeks, some during violent confrontations with police, prompting accusations of the use of excessive force.
President Joe Biden, facing pressure from all political sides over the conflict in Gaza, delivered his first extended comments on the protests on Thursday, saying “order must prevail.”
“We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or stifle dissent,” Biden said in a brief speech from the White House.
“But we are not a lawless country either. We are a civil society and order must prevail.”
His comments came hours after police attacked protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles, who witnessed a violent confrontation when counter-protesters attacked a fortified encampment there.
A large police contingent forcibly cleared the sprawling encampment early Thursday, while blasts were launched to disperse the crowds gathered outside.
School officials said more than 200 people were arrested.
On the US West Coast, demonstrators at a University of California, Riverside encampment were expected to be disbanded around midnight on Friday after a compromise with administrators. The agreement came after similar compromises at Rutgers University in New Jersey Thursday and Brown University in Rhode Island earlier this week.
Worldwide
Republicans have accused Biden of being soft on what they say is anti-Semitic sentiment among protesters, while he faces opposition in his own party for his strong support for Israel’s military offensive.
“There should be no place for anti-Semitism or threats of violence against Jewish students on any campus or in America,” Biden said.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona reiterated the condemnation in a letter to university leaders on Friday, vowing to “aggressively” investigate reports of anti-Semitism, CNN reported.
Meanwhile, similar student protests have cropped up in countries around the world, including Australia, France, Mexico and Canada.
In Paris, police intervened to clear students staging a sit-in at Sciences Po University.
An encampment has grown at Canada’s prestigious McGill University, where administrators on Wednesday demanded it be demolished “without delay.”
However, police had yet to take action against the location on Friday.
The Gaza war began when Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, resulting in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel estimates there are 128 hostages remaining in Gaza. The Israeli army says 35 of them are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 34,600 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
