Los Angeles, May 2 (RHC)-- In the U.S. state of California, riot police have moved in on the Gaza solidarity encampment at the University of California/Los Angeles campus, making arrests and violently dismantling the peaceful protest site.   Students reported serious injuries as the officers raided the camp, shooting rubber bullets and flashbangs. 

On Wednesday, police also made dozens of arrests at the Gaza solidarity encampments at Dartmouth College, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Arizona.

In New York City, police moved in on Fordham University protesters just hours after they set up their encampment at Fordham’s Lincoln Square campus.  The Fordham raid came a day after New York police arrested nearly 300 protesters at Columbia University and the City College of New York. 

On Wednesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams defended the police raids and claimed “outside agitators” were trying to “radicalize young people.” 

Meanwhile, on Columbia’s campus, faculty members addressed students.  Palestinian American historian and professor of modern Arab studies Rashid Khalidi evoked Columbia’s 1968 protest, telling students their actions would one day be commemorated in the same way.

Rashid Khalidi told the student rally: “This is the conscience of a nation, speaking through your kids, through young people, who are risking their futures, who are risking suspension, expulsion, criminal arrest, in order to wake people up in this country.”