Ninety-three people were arrested Wednesday during a demonstration on the campus of the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, organized in the wake of several pro-Palestinian student rallies in the United States, announced the police.
• Read also: Gaza: tense face-to-face between the police and hundreds of Texas students
• Read also: Rising tensions between pro-Palestinian students and police on American campuses
“No injuries reported. Police patrols will continue in the area on Thursday, the Los Angeles Police Department said in a message posted on the social network X.
For its part, USC indicated on X around midnight that the demonstration was over and that the campus would remain “closed until further notice.”
“Students, faculty, staff and those having business on campus may enter with proper identification,” the university added.
The pro-Palestinian demonstration at USC is part of a series of student demonstrations since October to protest the growing number of casualties in Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip that has killed some 34,200 people, most of them civilians, according to the Palestinian Islamist movement’s Ministry of Health.
The unprecedented attack of October 7, 2023 carried out by Hamas left 1,170 dead, mainly civilians, according to an AFP report established from official Israeli data.
The latest wave of protests began at Columbia University in New York, where dozens of arrests were made last week after university officials used the police to end an occupation accused by several personalities to stir up anti-Semitism. Pro-Palestinian protests continued Wednesday on the Columbia campus.
At USC, Los Angeles police officers responded to the campus Wednesday afternoon, Captain Kelly Muniz told reporters. Faced with the protesters’ refusal to leave the scene, the police “helped the university by making arrests for trespassing,” she added.
