Police move in to break up pro-Palestine occupation at Amsterdam university buildings

Josh Salisbury
·2-min read
Police move in to break up pro-Palestine occupation at Amsterdam university buildings

Police have moved to break up a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Amsterdam after students occupied university buildings on Monday.

In local media footage, the students can be heard chanting at the police: "We are peaceful, what are you?" and "Shame on you".

Earlier on Monday, a Dutch protest group said it had occupied university buildings in the Dutch cities of Amsterdam, Groningen and Eindhoven.

The group said in a statement that occupations would continue until the police broke them up.

It also vowed that protesters would keep returning until the university meets their demands "for transparency (as well as) boycotting and divesting from Israeli institutions".

Protesters in the ABC building of the University of Amsterdam on Monday (ANP/AFP via Getty Images)
Protesters in the ABC building of the University of Amsterdam on Monday (ANP/AFP via Getty Images)

In a post on social media site X, formerly Twitter, Amsterdam police said the university had filed a police report against the protesters for acts of vandalism.

Police are making sure no one can enter the university buildings and will ask protesters to leave the premises voluntarily.

A spokesperson for the University of Amsterdam (UvA) confirmed the occupation and said it had advised people not affiliated with the protest to leave the building.

The Eindhoven University of Technology also confirmed that there were “dozens of students peacefully protesting outside next to ten to 15 tents".

Students in the Netherlands have been protesting against Israel's war in Gaza since last Monday and Dutch riot police had previously clashed with protesters at the University of Amsterdam.

A rally by students and employees of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) on the Roeterseiland campus (ANP/AFP via Getty Images)
A rally by students and employees of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) on the Roeterseiland campus (ANP/AFP via Getty Images)

It comes amid many other similar protests at universities in the UK and the US.

Protests have been reported at UCL, Oxford, Cambridge, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Warwick, and Manchester universities.

Around 900 arrests have been estimated to have been made at high-profile student protests in the United States, including in New York.

Separately in the capital, the cost of policing pro-Palestinian and Israeli protests has reached north of £40million.

Demonstrations in London are now costing the Metropolitan police an average £6million a month, figures released last week show.

Between October and March the force spent about £36million on overseeing the marches, which have seen hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets of the city over the situation in the Middle East.

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