Police arrest 50 Pro-Palestine protesters on Utrecht campus; No intervention in A'dam
The police ended a Pro-Palestinian protest at Utrecht University, arresting around 50 demonstrators after midnight. A similar protest at a University of Amsterdam campus happened without intervention from the authorities, NOS reports.
In Utrecht, protesters occupied the courtyard of the University Library on the Drift at around 4:45 p.m. on Tuesday. They erected tents and barricades and demanded that Utrecht University speak out on the situation in Gaza and break all ties with Israeli universities.
Toward the end of the evening, some 150 demonstrators remained. The authorities ordered them to leave, and some did. After midnight, the police arrested the remaining 50 protesters and took them away on two city buses.
In Amsterdam, thousands of protesters gathered on Roeterseiland, where another protest happened on Monday, and they moved through the city center to occupy the Binnengasthuis, one of the University of Amsterdam’s main locations. The police were seen using batons on protesters as their march took them close to the Holocaust memorial.
The university did not press trespassing charges on Tuesday, and the police did not intervene in the occupation of the Binnengasthuis. On Wednesday morning, a few dozen protesters were still visibly present at the campus, a NOS reporter at the scene said. They added that more demonstrators may be sleeping inside buildings.
The Amsterdam demonstration is an initiative of UvA lecturers and students. Several protestors said on Tuesday that they joined the demonstration in solidarity with Monday’s protesters. The demonstration was peaceful but disrupted by people from outside the university, they said.
The police arrested some 140 protesters at the demonstration on Roeterseiland during the early hours of Tuesday morning.
The UvA wrote in a statement that university buildings suffered “significant damage.” It did not say exactly what the damage entails. The Executive Board said it would like to talk to demonstrators this morning to find a solution. Due to the demonstrations, several university buildings will be closed on Wednesday.
The Amsterdam demonstrators also demanded that the UvA break ties with Israeli universities, among other things, due to the war in Gaza.
As of 11:20 a.m. on May 7, local time, Israeli attacks have killed more than 34,789 people in Gaza, including over 4,500 children. More than 78,204 people are injured, and over 8,000 are missing, Al Jazeera reported based on figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Israel has now started attacking Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip where over a million Palestinians have fled to on Israel’s orders as the country bombed the rest of the coastal strip. This week, Israel captured the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt - the last crossing where trickles of aid were still entering Gaza.
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.
The onslaught was triggered by a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, killing around 1,139 people.
