Mounting tensions on U.S. campuses boiled over on Wednesday when pro-Israel supporters attacked an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), hours after police arrested activists who occupied a building at Columbia University and flattened a tent city on its campus.
Eyewitness videos from UCLA showed people wielding sticks or poles to hammer on wooden boards being used as makeshift barricades to protect the pro-Palestinian protesters before police were called to the campus.
On the other side of the country, scores of New York City police officers in helmets and armor arrested pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupying an academic building at Columbia University. Undergraduate students out watching the extraordinary scene, many jeering at the police, fled into nearby buildings on the command of officers as police also cleared out a nearby protest encampment that had inspired similar protests at campuses across the country and abroad.