Israel backers attack pro-Palestinian camp at UCLA, as NYC police arrest 300

 Supporters of Israel attacked a pro-Palestinian protest camp at the University of California in Los Angeles on Wednesday, hours after New York City police arrested some 300 protestors, as days of mounting tensions on some U.S. college campuses boiled over.

Eyewitness videos from UCLA, verified by Reuters, 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 deployed to the campus.

On the other side of the country, New York police arrested pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupying an academic building at Columbia University and removed a two-week-old protest encampment that had inspired similar protests at campuses across the country and abroad.

Arrests at Columbia and nearby City College of New York numbered about 300, Mayor Eric Adams said, with many of them charged with trespassing and criminal mischief.

The clashes at UCLA and in New York are part of the biggest outpouring of U.S. student activism since the anti-racism rallies and marches of 2020. The protests were triggered by the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip and the ensuing Israeli offensive on the Palestinian enclave.

Students have rallied or set up tent encampments at dozens of schools across the U.S. in recent days, expressing opposition to Israel's war in Gazaand demanding schools divest from companies that support Israel's government. Many of the schools have called in police to quell the protests.

With the presidential election coming in November, Republican lawmakers have accused some university administrators of ignoring antisemitic rhetoric and harassment, some demanding that Columbia's president resign. Many