Police cart off Pro-Palestinian protesters at Amsterdam Univ.; 125 arrested

The police cleared out demonstrators who erected a tent camp on the Roeterseiland campus of the University of Amsterdam to protest against the war in Gaza. Riot police escorted demonstrators away from the campus and arrested 125 people. The police say protesters threw fireworks at them.

Several dozen demonstrators were taken off campus via Sarphatistraat. That involved a lot of pushing and pulling as the protesters clung to each other. Footage of the eviction on social media may look “intense”, the police wrote on X, adding that the efforts were necessary to “restore order.”

The demonstration started on Monday afternoon. Protesters set up tents on campus and blocked two bridges and the entrance to the campus on Nieuwe Prinsengracht. They demanded that all Amsterdam universities break their ties with Israel over the slaughter in Gaza, among other things.

At around 8:30 p.m., about ten men sought confrontation with the pro-Palestinian demonstrators. The men assaulted the protesters and threw fireworks at them, NOS reported. The demonstrators managed to chase them off.

The university asked demonstrators to leave several times last night, but few complied. The riot police arrived on site at 3:00 a.m., and by 4:30 a.m., most protesters were gone, NOS reported.

The police wrote in a statement that the protest caused an unsafe situation “partly due to the barricades that prevented emergency services from entering the site. In the event of an emergency, the activists themselves could become stuck on the site.”

Many protesters were still in custody on Tuesday morning. The police released some after identifying them. They remain suspects in this case, a police spokesperson told ANP. Those whose identities are not yet known are still in custody.

The University of Amsterdam published a list of the Israeli institutions it collaborates with on its website, which was one of the demonstrators’ demands. The UvA has a student exchange program with three universities in Israel: the University of Tel Aviv, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Ben Gurion University. UvA researchers are also involved in eight European research projects in which Israeli researchers or companies participate.

“The UvA does not want to contribute to warfare under any circumstances, nor do we want to participate in exchanges in the field of military-oriented education. As far as we can assess, our current collaborations meet this requirement,” the university wrote.

Israel launched a massive war on the Gaza Strip after Hamas killed some 1,139 people in a terrorist attack on Israel on October 7. Since then, Israeli attacks have killed at least 34,735 people in Gaza, including over 14,500 children. More than 78,108 people are injured and over 8,000 are missing, Al Jazeera reported based on figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, updated at 4:00 p.m. on May 6, local time.

Israeli attacks have destroyed or damaged 60 percent of Gaza homes, some 80 percent of commercial facilities, 73 percent of school buildings, and 267 places of worship, Al Jazeera wrote based on figures from the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and the Palestinian government, also updated on May 6. Only 12 of the 35 hospitals in Gaza are functioning, none of them fully, and 83 percent of the groundwater wells are not operational.