Hundreds of helmeted police muscled their way into a central plaza of the University of California at Los Angeles early on Thursday (May 2) to dismantle a pro-Palestinian protest camp attacked the previous night by pro-Israel supporters.

The pre-dawn police crackdown at UCLA marked the latest flashpoint for mounting tensions on U.S. college campuses, where protests over Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza have led to student clashes with each other and law enforcement.

Dozens of loud explosions were heard during the clash from flash-bang charges, or stun grenades, fired by police.

The occupants of the outdoor protest camp, set up last week, had remained mostly peaceful before the melee, in which both sides traded blows and doused each other with pepper spray.

UCLA officials said the campus, which enrolls nearly 52,000 students, including undergraduates and graduate scholars, would remain shuttered except for limited operations on Thursday and Friday.

Students have rallied or set up tent encampments at dozens of schools across the U.S. in recent days, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and demanding schools divest from companies that support Israel’s government. Many of the schools have called in police to quell the protests.

(REUTERS)