Brussels University to file police complaint over student violence in Gaza protest

BRUSSELS: Brussels University (ULB) will file a police complaint against students involved in a violent protest against Israel’s war in Gaza, including an assault on the Jewish students union leader, rector Annemie Schaus said on Belgian radio on Wednesday.

“A complaint will be filed because there were acts of violence, and in particular against the president (of the Union of Jewish Students of Belgium). And I cannot tolerate that,” she told RTBF radio. The complaint will seek to hold the perpetrators accountable for their actions, Schaus added.

She said calm returned to the ULB campus on Tuesday after security services intervened to stop what witnesses told local media was an assault on the Jewish students union chief, with a few protesters shouting antisemitic slurs.

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The Union of Jewish Students of Belgium condemned the assault. Its leader was not seriously injured.

Belgian newspaper Le Soir said students continue to occupy some areas of the university and that a dialogue between them and the university was continuing. There were no immediate plans to eject the camped-out students.

In the neighbouring Netherlands, pro-Palestinian protesters were occupying a University of Amsterdam site on Wednesday, a day after police clashed with protesters in the Dutch capital and broke up an earlier encampment at the university.

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There have been protests and sit-ins by pro-Palestinian university students in a number of Western countries recently, with the worst disturbances at some U.S. universities.