Riot police were again drafted in to disperse some 2,000 pro-Palestine demonstrators who had gathered on the Spui in the city centre on Thursday evening after marching through town.

However, the demonstration ended peacefully after the organisers urged the protestors themselves to go home, following two-minutes silence for the victims of the war in Gaza, local broadcaster AT5 reported.

“This was a peaceful demonstration,” the spokesman said. “We want our demonstrations to be peaceful… we are not looking to escalate them.”

The police said they will remain on alert in the city “to be able to react if necessary,” a spokesman told the broadcaster. There were three arrests on Thursday evening after minor skirmishes, police said.

Meanwhile, the University of Amsterdam’s rector Peter-Paul Verbeek told television current affairs show Nieuwsuur on Thursday evening that he and other officials were in “continual” conversation with the demonstrators – although he did not know who some of them were because they were masked.

The people involved in the talks were students involved with “various campaign groups” and also included university staff, Verbeek said.

The fact some of them had covered their faces was a “handicap” in the talks because it made understanding them more difficult “and it was in English”, Verbeek said.

The students and university staff want the university to cut all ties with companies and organisations which work with Israel. The university has published a list of the universities which it does work with, Verbeek said. “But we are not going to cut ties,” out of academic considerations, he said.

Amsterdam city council is holding an emergency debate on the ongoing protests on Friday afternoon.

The protesters are also planning to resume their campaign on Friday, which will be the fifth day of pro-Palestine demonstrations in the Dutch capital.