Police clear pro-Palestine encampments and arrest hundreds on US college campuses

A pro-Israel ‘mob’ attacked students on the UCLA campus and in New York the mayor blamed ‘outside agitators’ for escalation

• US campus protests - live updates

Crackdowns on pro-Palestine protests at US colleges intensified overnight and continued on Wednesday, leading to some violence and hundreds of arrests amid widespread controversy over universities calling in police and claims about “outside agitators” driving escalation.

The number of arrests of student protesters is approaching 1,500 by some estimates across more than 30 campuses, coast to coast and north to south, as Columbia University in New York and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), erupted overnight, while arrests were made at the University of Arizona in Tucson and at the University of Wisconsin in Madison on Wednesday, among other places.