Protests against Israel’s war in Gaza have spread from US campuses to Europe, with German police dispersing on Tuesday a protest by several hundred pro-Palestinian activists occupying a courtyard at Berlin’s Free University earlier in the day.
The protesters formed a human chain around about 20 tents. Most covered their faces with medical masks and put kufiyah scarves over their heads, shouting slogans such as “Viva, viva Palestina.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Dutch police arrested about 125 activists who dispersed a similar pro-Palestinian demonstration camp at the University of Amsterdam. Police used pepper spray against some protesters. The protesters rejected any dialogue, so the institution called in police to clear the campus, university president Guenter Ziegler reported.
This form of protest is not geared towards dialogue. An occupation is not acceptable on the FU [Free University] Berlin campus. We are available for academic dialog — but not in this way.
The administration claimed that some protesters tried to enter the FU’s classrooms and lecture halls to fortify themselves there. The protest organisers, who claimed to be made up of students from various universities in Berlin and others, called on other students and lecturers to take part in the action, the university stated.
In recent days, students have held protests or set up camps in Finland, Denmark, Italy, Spain, France and the UK following previous protests at US campuses.
After dispersing a protest in Amsterdam, police closed off the area with metal fences by Tuesday afternoon. The school released a statement saying police stopped the demonstration at the Roeterseiland campus overnight Tuesday “due to public order and safety concerns.”
The war between Israel and Hamas is having a major impact on individual students and staff. We share the anger and bewilderment over the war, and we understand that there are protests over it. We stress that within the university, dialogue about it is the only answer.
In Finland, dozens of protesters from the Students for Palestine solidarity group camped outside the main building at the University of Helsinki, declaring that they would remain there until the university, Finland’s largest academic institution, severed academic ties with Israeli universities.
In Denmark, students set up a pro-Palestinian camp at the University of Copenhagen, erecting about 45 tents near the campus of the Faculty of Social Sciences. The university stated that students could protest but urged them to respect the rules at the campus.
In Italy, students at the University of Bologna camped out over the weekend to demand an end to the war in Gaza as Israel prepared an offensive on Rafah despite calls from its Western allies against it. Student groups organised similar protests in Rome and Naples, which were largely peaceful.
In Spain, dozens of students spent more than a week at a pro-Palestinian camp at the University of Valencia campus. Similar camps were set up on Monday at the University of Barcelona and the University of the Basque Country. A group representing students from public universities in Madrid announced it would intensify protests against the war in the coming days.
On Friday, May 3, French police peacefully removed dozens of students from a building at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences Po, after they rallied in support of the Palestinians. Protests took place last week at several other universities in France, including Lille and Lyon. Macron’s office reported that police were asked to remove students from 23 institutions at French campuses.
On Tuesday, May 7, the Israeli military claimed to have taken operational control of the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt from the Gaza Strip. Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Gaza administration, confirmed that the Israeli army controlled the Rafah border crossing.
Israel launched an offensive on Rafah on Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Day of Remembrance of the Catastrophe and Heroism of the Jewish People in World War II is a national day of mourning established in Israel in memory of the Jews exterminated by the Nazis and commemorating the dates of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (19 April – 16 May 1943).
At least 34,735 people have been killed and 78,108 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. Meanwhile, the death toll in Israel from Hamas attacks on was 1,139, with dozens still in captivity.
