Amsterdam police break up pro-Palestinian student protest

(Updates with police move to end barricades at top) AMSTERDAM, May 8 (Reuters) - Dutch riot police broke up a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) on Wednesday, battling demonstrators who had vowed to stay put until the institution severed all ties with Israel.

Dutch riot police broke up a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) on Wednesday, battling demonstrators who had vowed to stay put until the institution severed all ties with Israel. Protesters on barricades made of desks, fences, wooden pallets and bricks used fire extinguishers to keep the police at bay, images on the local TV station AT5 showed.

Police hit protesters with batons and used a shovel to knock down the barricades, breaking through in a matter of minutes. Hundreds of protesters on the narrow streets outside shouted "Shame on you!" as the police pushed them away from the campus site and dragged many protesters away.

The police had detained 169 people early on Tuesday after sometimes violent clashes as they cleared a similar protest at another UvA site. Students in the Dutch capital have joined a wave of sit-ins and other actions at universities throughout Europe against Israel's war in Gaza, following larger-scale disturbances at U.S. universities. UvA managers had hoped talks on Wednesday would bring an end to the protests, but the students dug in, pulling up bricks from the streets and pavements near to the 19th-century campus and forming human chains to take them to the barricade. The protesters say the Israeli institutions that the university works with profit from oppression of Palestinians.

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