Police deployed in force on the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) campus on Wednesday morning after Israel supporters attacked a camp set up by pro-Palestinian protesters, reports Reuters.

Witness footage from the scene, verified by Reuters, showed people wielding sticks or poles to attack wooden boards being held up as a makeshift barricade to protect the pro-Palestinian protesters, some of whom held placards or umbrellas.

On the other side of the country, police in New York arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators holed up in a building at Columbia University and removed a protest encampment on Tuesday night.

The 7 October attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip and the ensuing Israeli offensive on the Palestinian enclave have unleashed the biggest outpouring of US student activism since the anti-racism protests of 2020.

As student rallies have spread to dozens of schools across the US in recent days expressing opposition to Israel's war in Gaza, police have been called in to quell or clear protests.

About 1,200 people in southern Israel were killed in the 7 October attack but the Israeli retaliatory assault has killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health ministry figures, obliterated much of the enclave's infrastructure, and created a humanitarian crisis verging on famine.

The student protests in the United States have also taken on political overtones in the run-up to the presidential election in November, with Republicans accusing some university administrators of turning a blind eye to antisemitic rhetoric and harassment.

On Tuesday, school officials informed the protesters that the encampment was unlawful and violated university policy. UCLA Chancellor Gene Brock said it included people "unaffiliated with our campus".

Footage from the early hours showed mostly masked counter-demonstrators throwing objects and trying to smash or pull down the wooden and steel barriers erected to shield the encampment as pro-Palestinian protesters tried to fight them off.

Demonstrators on both sides sprayed each other and fights broke out.

A nationwide movement

The protests have posed a challenge to university administrators trying to balance free speech rights with complaints that the rallies have veered into anti-Semitism and hate, reports AFP.

The unrest has swept through US higher education institutions like wildfire, with many student protesters erecting tent encampments on campuses from coast to coast.

In another of the newest clashes, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, police moved in Tuesday to clear one encampment, detaining some protesters in a tense showdown.

A week-long occupation was brought also brought to an end at northern California's Cal Poly Humboldt while Portland State University's campus, in Oregon, was closed Tuesday "due to an ongoing incident" in the library.

Local media reported around 50 protesters had broken into the building a day earlier.

And Brown University reached an agreement in which student protesters will remove their encampment in exchange for the institution holding a vote on divesting from Israel -- a major concession from an elite American university.

Footage of police in riot gear summoned at various colleges has been viewed around the world.

Dozens were arrested at City College, the New York Times reported.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk voiced concern at the heavy-handed steps taken to disperse the campus protests, saying "freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly are fundamental to society."

UCLA is part of the University of California system. It has about 32,000 undergraduate students and is located in the residential neighbourhood of Westwood just outside of Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles.

Source: Reuters and AFP