Police break up pro-Palestinian student protest in Berlin as demos spread across Europe

Police arrests some 125 activists as they broke up a pro-Palestinian demonstration camp
at the University of Amsterdam

Berlin police yesterday broke up a protest by several hundred pro-Palestinian activists who had occupied a courtyard on Berlin’s Free University earlier in the day. The protesters had put up about 20 tents and formed a human chain around the tents.

Police called on the students via loudspeakers to leave the campus.

Most protesters had covered their faces with medical masks and had draped kufiyahs around their heads, shouting slogans like “viva, viva Palestina.”

In recent days, students have held protests or set up encampments in Finland, Denmark, Italy, Spain, France and Britain, following earlier protests that have roiled U.S. campuses.

Dutch police arrested about 125 activists as they broke up a pro-Palestinian demonstration camp at the University of Amsterdam, as protests that have roiled campuses in the United States spread across Europe.

Students held protests or set up encampments in Finland, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Spain and in Britain. There have also been demonstrations in recent days at campuses in France.

Amsterdam police said on the social media platform X that their action was “necessary to restore order” after protests turned violent. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Video from the scene aired by national broadcaster NOS shows police using a mechanical digger to push down barricades and officers with batons and shields moving in, beating some of the protesters and pulling down tents. Protesters had formed barricades from wooden pallets and bicycles, NOS reported.

The demonstrators occupied a small island at the university son Monday, calling for a break in academic ties with Israel over the war in Gaza.

After clearing the Amsterdam protest by early afternoon yesterday, police closed off the area by metal fences. Students sat along the banks of a nearby canal. The school said in a statement that police ended the demonstration at its Roeterseiland campus overnight “due to public order and safety concerns.”

“The war between Israel and Hamas is having a major impact on individual students and staff,” it said. “We share the anger and bewilderment over the war, and we understand that there are protests over it. We stress that within the university, dialogue about it is the only answer.”

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters occupied a courtyard at Berlin’s Free University yesterday. The protesters put up about 20 tents and formed a human chain around the encampment after the school’s administrator said they were considering evacuating the protesters.

Police were called in and have been monitoring the protests. Most protesters had covered their faces with medical masks and had draped kufiyahs around their heads, chanting slogans like “viva, viva Palestina.”

In Finland, dozens of protesters from the Students for Palestine solidarity group set up an encampment outside the main building at the University of Helsinki, saying they would stay there until the university, which is Finland’s largest academic institution, cuts academic ties with Israeli universities.

In Denmark, students set up a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Copenhagen, erecting about 45 tents outside the campus of the Faculty of Social Sciences. The university said students can protest but called on them to respect the rules on campus grounds.

“Seek dialogue, not conflict and make room for perspectives other than your own,” the administrators said on X.

It said the administration “cannot and must not express an opinion on behalf of university employees and students about political matters, including about the ongoing conflict” in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

On their Facebook page, members of the activist group Students Against the Occupation said their attempts to talk to the administration over the past two years about withdrawing the school’s investments from companies with ties to activities in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories have been in vain.

“We can no longer be satisfied with cautious dialogue that does not lead to concrete action,” the group said.

In Germany, pro-Palestinian activists occupied a courtyard at the Free University in Berlin, German news agency dpa reported.

Around 80 to 100 people were involved in the protest at the university, known as FU. Several tents could be seen in photos posted on Instagram by a group named the Student Coalition Berlin, dpa reported. The university’s administration said it had ordered the removal of the protesters.

In Italy, students at the University of Bologna, one of the world’s oldest universities, set up a tent encampment over the weekend to demand an end to the war in Gaza as Israel prepared an offensive in Rafah, despite pleas from its Western allies against it. Groups of students organized similar protests in Rome and Naples, which were largely peaceful.

More than a dozen tents were set up in a piazza named for a university student who fought against fascist rule during World War II. Some were decorated with Palestinian flags and a banner read “Student Intefadeh” or Student Uprising.”

In Spain, dozens of students have spent over a week at a pro-Palestinian encampment on the University of Valencia campus. Similar camps were set up Monday at the University of Barcelona and at the University of the Basque Country. In Paris, student groups called for gatherings in solidarity with Palestinians later yesterday. MIKE CORDER & BARBARA, AMSTERDAM, MDT/AP