The police were active in both Amsterdam and Utrecht on Tuesday evening as several hundred demonstrators took to the streets to show their support for Palestine and to call for an end to the hostilities. 

In Utrecht, the police broke up a gathering of around 150 students next to the university’s main library who had set up tents and erected barricades in the late afternoon. Some of them refused to leave and around 50 people were arrested shortly after midnight.

The students were calling on the university authorities to speak out against the situation in Gaza and to break all ties with Israeli universities. 

In Amsterdam, there was a spontaneous march attended by at least 1,000 people in the late afternoon which passed off mainly peacefully although there were a few scuffles with police.

Later, there was a second occupation, this time at the inner city Binnengasthuis location. However, the police did not intervene because they had not been asked to by the university authorities. 

Riot police had been drafted in to break up an occupation at the Roeterseiland location in the early hours of Tuesday morning, and some 140 people were arrested. 

The UvA has informed students and staff that buildings in the Binnengasthuisterrein will remain closed on Wednesday and that all lectures there have been cancelled. 

According to university newspaper Folia officials plan to talk to the demonstrators at 9 am in an effort to de-escalate the situation.