Swedish police forcibly remove students from pro-Palestinian tent encampment

LONDON

Swedish police forcibly removed students from a tent encampment at Lund University on Thursday that was established on May 16 in solidarity with Palestinians and in protest against Israel's ongoing offensive on Gaza.

Dozens of students refused to leave when police attempted to clear the camp and were forcibly carried and dragged away.

Some protesters will only be allowed to go in and collect their belongings under police escort, after which the tents will be confiscated, police press spokesperson Thomas Johansson was quoted as saying by public broadcaster SVT Nyheter.

A man in his 30s was examined by paramedics after the situation escalated.

“I was not violent. I stood holding a Palestinian flag and was put. Then it's quite foggy,” he told SVT.

Another pro-Palestinian protester referred to as Aseel by SVT was “disappointed” with the police, as they "woke us up and screamed."

Aseel, who has been living in the tent camp for over two weeks, said: “This doesn't feel right. I thought we had a good dialogue with the police. And then they come and wake us up in the middle of the night and say we have half an hour (to leave).”

However, Jansson emphasized that it was clear from the beginning that the camp must be emptied by Friday.

On Wednesday, several people were arrested and dozens detained at another pro-Palestinian protest outside the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, according to a police statement.

The protests erupted as campus encampments have shaken US universities in recent weeks.

Pro-Palestine campus protests have been taking place in the US since April 17, when students at Columbia University in New York launched an encampment in solidarity with Gaza and demanded that their school divest from Israel.

More than 2,000 people have been arrested at US campuses since last month amid heavily polarized debates over the right to protest, the limits of free speech and accusations of antisemitism.

Demonstrations and sit-ins are also being held on campuses in parts of Europe, including France, the Netherlands and Switzerland, amid a wider call against Israeli attacks on Gaza that have killed more than 36,000 people, mostly women and children, and injured more than 80,000 amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling ordered it to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.