UCLA chancellor condemns ‘instigators’ who attacked pro-Palestinian camp on campus

The University of California in Los Angeles was reeling on Wednesday following a late-night violent attack by counter-demonstrators on a pro-Palestinian protest encampment, as the state’s governor condemned a slow response from law enforcement to some of the worst violence seen since students across the US intensified their protests in support of Gaza.

As the Los Angeles mayor called the violence “abhorrent” and California’s governor said he was monitoring the situation, UCLA announced it was cancelling all classes on Wednesday “due to the distress caused by the violence that took place on Royce Quad late last night”.

“The limited and delayed campus law enforcement response at UCLA last night was unacceptable – and it demands answers,” the office of the California governor, Gavin Newsom, said in a statement.

Gene Block, UCLA’s chancellor, has finally addressed the violence that rocked the campus last night, describing the counter-protesters as “instigators” who attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment. “However one feels about the encampment, this attack on our students, faculty and community members was utterly unacceptable,” he said.

Related: Crackdowns intensify on pro-Palestine campus protests as hundreds arrested

Some of the students who were injured at the encampment on Tuesday night described their attackers as pro-Israel or Zionist counter-protesters. Video footage of the violence included some counter-protesters yelling pro-Israel comments as pro-Palestinian protesters tried to fight them off.

David N Myers, a UCLA professor of Jewish history who watched footage of the late-night violence, said some of the attackers appeared to be carrying Israeli flags and other pro-Israel symbols.

Footage showed mostly male counter-demonstrators, many of them masked and some apparently older than the students. “I saw women as young as 18 and 19 punched in the face by 25- or 30-year-old men,” Aiden Doyle, a member of the student encampment, said at a student press conference on Wednesday.

Students described being attacked for hours with projectiles, fireworks and chemical agents. A young woman in a hijab described being sprayed in the face with bear mace. A student who identified himself only as Yusef said at the press conference that he had been hit in the head twice during the attack on the encampment, and was left with stitches on his forehead and 14 staples in the back of his head. But, Yusef said, he felt comparatively lucky: “I had the ability to go to a hospital last night. Currently in Gaza, there are zero fully functioning hospitals.”

Members of a student protest group told the Daily Bruin, a student newspaper, that “25 protesters within the pro-Palestine encampment were hospitalized overnight”. A University of California official estimated the number of injured as 15 people.

The Los Angeles police department did not respond to a request for comment on whether they had made any arrests after the attacks, referring all questions to UCLA’s campus police department, calling it “the lead agency” at the scene. UCLA campus police did not respond to a request for comment.

On campus on Wednesday morning, a helicopter hovered overhead while groups of security guards and law enforcement stood around a sectioned-off area of campus filled with tents. Students slowed as they passed the barricades, taking in the scene.

“I think all of us are in a state of shock,” said Noah, a UCLA law student who only felt comfortable using their first name.

UCLA students who witnessed the moments leading up to the attack on the encampment described a harrowing scene, which started before midnight.

A large group of counter-protesters wearing black with white masks made their way to the encampment and began striking students with planks of wood and pepper spray, Daniel Harris told the Guardian.

“This is stuff that only happens in movies,” Harris said he thought at the time, describing the experienced of masked counter-protesters marching through campus as surreal.

Meghna Mair, a second-year undergraduate who said she took part in pro-Palestinian protests last week, also witnessed the masked group march through campus on their way to the encampment.

“I knew where they were going,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do. I was so sickened and horrified.”

Aerial footage showed people wielding sticks or poles to attack wooden boards that had been put up as a makeshift barricade to protect the encampment, some holding placards or umbrellas. At least one firework was thrown into the camp.

Fights between both groups ensued, with people grappling in fistfights and shoving, kicking and using sticks to beat one another, according to reports and video from the scene. People threw chairs and other objects and at one point a group piled on a person on the ground, kicking and beating them with sticks until others pulled them out of the scrum.

The violence continued from 11pm until 3am, with security guards and law enforcement officials at the scene initially retreating or failing to intervene, multiple news outlets reported.

The Los Angeles Times reported that a group of security guards could be seen observing the clashes, but that they did not intervene. The UCLA campus police (UCPD) showed up shortly after 11pm to break up the conflict, but left within minutes, the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper, reported.

The UCPD chief, John Thomas, told the student newspaper that officers had come under attack while trying to help an injured person, so they left. Some of the security guards hired by the university also retreated and hid inside a building last night as counter-protesters attacked, the Daily Bruin reported. Thomas and a UCLA spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Teresa Wanatabe, a higher education reporter for the Los Angeles Times, tweeted just before 1am that she was receiving texts from “terrified UCLA students” in the pro-Palestinian encampment, telling her: “This is urgent. Please. It’s getting bad. No police.”

Administrators at the university said in a 12.40am statement that they had called in law enforcement officers to stem the violence.

But while Los Angeles police arrived at the scene at about 1.40am, officers did not immediately break up the two sets of protesters, and the clashes continued for at least an hour, the Los Angeles Times and CalMatters reported.

“Counter protestors continue fighting in front of police line about 100ft away,” a CalMatters reporter tweeted shortly before 2am.

“Law enforcement simply stood at the edge of the lawn and refused to budge as we screamed for their help,” students with the UC Divest at UCLA group said in a statement early on Wednesday morning.

Not until nearly 3am did police take action: “Exactly 1 hour after arriving at UCLA, police move in closer and counter-protesters move away, leaving the encampment alone.” There were “no visible arrests”, CalMatters reported, noting “counter-protesters have left”.

The Daily Bruin said on Twitter/X that four of its reporters were followed and assaulted during the night.

Myers, the UCLA professor of Jewish history, said the violent night represented a “total systems failure”.

“The basic compact that those in a position of leadership and faculty have with our students is that we will provide a safe environment for the exchange of ideas,” Myers said. “Where were the police?”

The president of the University of California system pledged on Wednesday that there would be an independent investigation of what had happened on UCLA’s campus.

Writing on X, the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, condemned the violence as “absolutely abhorrent and inexcusable,” and demanded “a full investigation”.

“Those involved in launching fireworks at other people, spraying chemicals and physically assaulting others will be found, arrested, and prosecuted, as well as anyone involved in any form of violence or lawlessness,” Bass wrote.

Ananya Roy, a geography professor at UCLA, condemned the university over its lack of response to the counter-protesters. “It gives people impunity to come to our campus as a rampaging mob,” she told the LA Times. “The word is out they can do this repeatedly and get away with it. I am ashamed of my university.”

The clashes began shortly after Block, the UCLA chancellor, said the campus’s pro-Palestine encampment was “unlawful”, adding that students who remained in it would face disciplinary action.

In an editorial, UCLA’s student newspaper blamed the administration for failing to take action to prevent violence between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and counter-protesters. “Will someone have to die on our campus tonight for you to intervene, Gene Block?” the students asked the university’s chancellor.

There were signs over the weekend that violence at the site of UCLA’s pro-Palestinian encampment was escalating, with reports of pushes, shoving and punches thrown and a university spokesperson confirming “physical altercations among demonstrators”.

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

Late on Tuesday, New York City police arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators holed up in an academic building on Columbia University campus in New York and removed a protest encampment that the Ivy League school had sought to dismantle for nearly two weeks.

Live video images showed police in riot gear marching on the campus in upper Manhattan, the focal point of the nationwide student protests. Officers used an armoured vehicle with a bridging mechanism to gain entry to the second floor of the building.

Officers said they used flash-bangs to disperse the crowd but denied using teargas as part of the operation. Officers were seen leading protesters handcuffed with zip-ties to a line of police buses waiting outside campus gates.

The police operation, which was largely over within a couple of hours, follows nearly two weeks of tensions, with pro-Palestinian protesters at the university ignoring an ultimatum on Monday to abandon their encampment or risk suspension.

Columbia University officials had earlier threatened academic expulsion of the students who had seized Hamilton Hall, an eight-storey neoclassical building blocked by protesters who linked arms to form a barricade and chanted pro-Palestinian slogans.

The university said on Tuesday it had asked police to enter the campus to “restore safety and order to our community”.

• The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report