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<h1>UCLA clashes: Pro-Palestinian protesters attacked by Israel supporters</h1><p class="gmail-article__subhead gmail-css-1wt8oh6"><em>Police delay intervention into ‘shocking’ attack, featuring masked vigilantes armed with pepper spray and fireworks.</em> <br></p><div class="gmail-vjs-quality-menu-wrapper gmail-vjs-menu-button gmail-vjs-menu-button-popup gmail-vjs-control gmail-vjs-button gmail-vjs-quality-menu-button-use-resolution" aria-label="Quality Levels"></div><div class="gmail-vjs-quality-menu-wrapper gmail-vjs-menu-button gmail-vjs-menu-button-popup gmail-vjs-control gmail-vjs-button gmail-vjs-quality-menu-button-use-resolution" aria-label="Quality Levels"></div><div class="gmail-aj-video-player gmail-article__featured-video"><div class="gmail-vjs-pip-container"><span class="gmail-video-js gmail-vjs-controls-enabled gmail-vjs-touch-enabled gmail-vjs-workinghover gmail-vjs-v7 gmail-bc-player-nahv11Vw34_default gmail-bc-player-nahv11Vw34_default-index-0 gmail-vjs-ad-controls gmail-vjs-ima3-html5 gmail-pause-controller gmail-vjs-plugins-ready gmail-vjs-player-info gmail-vjs-contextmenu gmail-vjs-contextmenu-ui gmail-vjs-errors gmail-vjs-quality-menu gmail-vjs-has-started gmail-vjs-layout-medium gmail-vjs-user-inactive gmail-vjs-paused gmail-vjs-ended" id="gmail-vjs_video_3" tabindex="-1" lang="en" role="region" aria-label="Video Player"></span></div></div><div class="gmail-video-duration__brand-bar gmail-u-visibility-hidden"><span class="gmail-screen-reader-text"></span><span aria-hidden="true" class="gmail-video-duration__duration"></span></div>Israel supporters attack anti-war protesters at UCLA university in US<div class="gmail-article-info-block gmail-css-ti04u9"><div class="gmail-article-b-l" style="border-color:rgb(250,144,0)"><div class="gmail-article-dates" style="border-color:rgb(250,144,0)"><div class="gmail-date-simple gmail-css-1yjq2zp"><span class="gmail-screen-reader-text">Published On 1 May 2024 - </span><font size="1"><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/1/ucla-clashes-pro-palestinian-protesters-attacked-by-israel-supporters">https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/1/ucla-clashes-pro-palestinian-protesters-attacked-by-israel-supporters</a></font><span aria-hidden="true"></span></div></div></div><div class="gmail-social-share-buttons"><div class="gmail-update-reading-list"></div></div></div><div class="gmail-update-reading-list"><span class="gmail-update-reading-list__tooltip" role="tooltip"></span></div><a class="gmail-social-share-button" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-label="Share on Facebook" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Faje.io%2Fbcy4cw"></a><a class="gmail-social-share-button" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-label="Share on Twitter" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=UCLA%20clashes%3A%20Pro-Palestinian%20protesters%20attacked%20by%20Israel%20supporters&source=sharethiscom&related=sharethis&via=AJEnglish&url=https%3A%2F%2Faje.io%2Fbcy4cw"></a><a class="gmail-social-share-button gmail-copylink" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" aria-label="Copy link" href="https://aje.io/bcy4cw"><span class="gmail-copylink__tooltip gmail-copylink__tooltip-hidden"></span></a><p style="font-weight:400">A demonstration against Israel’s war on Gaza at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/1/live-us-university-protests-spread-amid-growing-calls-to-end-gaza-war">turned violent</a> when a vigilante pro-Israel mob attacked a solidarity encampment occupied by peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters.</p>
<p style="font-weight:400">Witnesses said the Los Angeles Police
Department (LAPD) only intervened after nearly four hours of the
attacks, which started overnight into Wednesday when masked pro-Israel
counter-demonstrators, who appeared in their hundreds from outside the
university campus, hurled fireworks into the encampment.</p>
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<p style="font-weight:400">The attackers, carrying Israeli flags, then
tried to tear down the pro-Palestinian camp, assaulting students with
pepper spray, sticks, stones and metal fencing. Police stood by, failing
to protect students, who re-commandeered the metal fencing thrown at
them to shield themselves, said Joey Scott, an investigative journalist
speaking to Al Jazeera from the scene.</p>
<p>Before the police arrived, a group reportedly piled on one person who
lay on the ground, kicking and beating them until others pulled them
out of the scrum.</p>
<p style="font-weight:400">Eventually, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass
issued a statement on X early on Wednesday morning that police were
responding to requests for support from the UCLA administration. LAPD
confirmed their intervention at about 2am (09:00 GMT).</p>
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<p></p><p>“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.</p>
<p style="font-weight:400">Reporting from Los Angeles, Al Jazeera’s
Rob Reynolds said the student protesters had stood their ground. The
number of injured was not yet known, but reports on social media
indicated that some people have been led away with injuries, he said, as
he described the “really shocking and ugly scene of violence”.</p>
<p style="font-weight:400">The vigilante mob appeared to come from
outside the campus. “They appear to be all largely people who are not of
student age and they’re not from the UCLA campus, but what they’re
doing is trying to harass and attack the pro-Palestinian demonstrators,”
said Reynolds.</p>
<p>Bass called the violence “absolutely abhorrent and inexcusable”.</p>
<p>The antiwar group said that “law enforcement simply stood at the edge
of the lawn and refused to budge as we screamed for their help. The
only means of protection we had was each other” as the attack went on
for more than seven hours.</p>
<p>“The university would rather see us dead than divest,” it added in a statement posted on X.</p>
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<h2 id="gmail-nationwide-escalation">Nationwide escalation</h2>
<p style="font-weight:400">The UCLA attack is the latest escalation in <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/29/mapping-pro-palestine-campus-protests-around-the-world">two weeks of demonstrations</a>
against Israel’s war on Gaza that have spread to universities across
the United States, and to some universities in other countries.</p>
<p style="font-weight:400">Pro-Palestinian students at UCLA had
occupied campus grounds for the past two days, calling for the
divestment of the university’s financial ties to Israel.</p>
<p style="font-weight:400">Late on Tuesday, New York City police arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators holed up in an academic building on the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/1/new-york-city-police-enter-columbia-campus-as-gaza-protest-escalates">Columbia University</a> campus in Manhattan and removed a protest encampment that the Ivy League school had sought to dismantle for nearly two weeks.</p>
<p>Columbia’s police action happened on the 56th anniversary of a
similar move to quash an occupation of Hamilton Hall by students
protesting against racism and the Vietnam War.</p>
<p>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 on social media showed officers shoving
people around as they cleared them from the street and pavements. Many
arrested protesters were driven away on city buses.</p>
<p style="font-weight:400">Scott said he believed the delayed police
response to the UCLA violence would serve as “inspiration” to potential
attackers, seeking to force pro-Palestinian protesters to drop their
demands.</p>
<p style="font-weight:400">“If they are trying to quell future
violence, they have done a terrible job of that because it appears to be
fully endorsed,” he said.</p>
<p style="font-weight:400">Al Jazeera’s Reynolds said the mob at UCLA reminded him of “settler violence on the [occupied] <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/tag/occupied-west-bank/">West Bank</a> without the use of as much lethal force, but this is clearly a violent, uncontrolled mob that is bent on mayhem”.</p>
<p style="font-weight:400">One member of the pro-Israel mob carried a
large yellow flag with a crown and, emblazoned with the word “Messiah”.
“These are symbols of radical, far-right Jewish groups,” said Reynolds.</p>
<p style="font-weight:400">It was not known how the mob had organised.</p>
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