A mobile unit of the Netherlands Police dispersed a pro-Palestinian demonstration at Radboud University Nijmegen.
According to local media, between 30 and 50 students seized part of the first floor of the university building on May 27. The protesters demanded that the university sever its academic ties with Israel. However, the administration demanded that they must leave the building.
Protesters refused to leave, and police began to disperse them. Around midnight, law enforcers broke down the barricades set up by the students and began to take the protesters out into the street. The students could leave the building voluntarily, but some of them, according to the local television, “chained themselves together.”
On May 22, L1 News reported that several dozen pro-Palestinian protesters took over the building housing the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of Maastricht University. The protesters also demanded that the university end all relations with Israel.
Riot police broke into a pro-Palestinian demonstration at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) on Monday. This was the latest in a series of clashes between police and protesters at Dutch universities.
Students and staff organised a strike by universities across the Netherlands on Monday morning, calling on Dutch universities to end their complicity in “the ongoing genocide” in the Gaza Strip.
Government backed ICJ
The Dutch government has “urgently” called on Israel to halt attacks on Rafah after the country bombed a tent camp where many thousands of Palestinians had sought refuge under instructions from the Israeli military in previous months. Outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte called reports and images of the attacks “appalling.”
The appalling images from Rafah highlight once more the necessity of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all hostages. The Netherlands urgently calls on Israel to comply with the Order of the International Court of Justice.
Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins Slot also condemned Israel’s actions.
Appalling reports of many civilian casualties after an attack at a tent camp in Rafah. The Netherlands once again calls for an immediate ceasefire that should lead to the release of the hostages and much more humanitarian aid in Gaza.
Until Friday’s interim ruling by the International Court of Justice, the Netherlands had always refused to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. However, already in March, Rutte warned that an Israeli offensive in Rafah would lead to “a political moment that will have consequences.”
