Police arrested at least a dozen anti-Israel protestors as they cleared a lecture hall and student encampment at the University of California, Irvine. 

The University put out an emergency alert on Wednesday declaring a ‘violent protest’ after ‘a group of several hundred protestors entered the UC Irvine campus and began surrounding’ the Physical Sciences Lecture Hall. 

Officers from ten nearby law-enforcement agencies converged on the campus in riot gear, clashing with protestors and clearing the encampment. 

At least a dozen students were arrested, according to CNN, with many being secured with zip ties and led away by officers.  

‘The police have retaken the lecture hall,’ UC Irvine spokesperson Tom Vasich said, ‘The plaza has been cleared by law-enforcement officers.’

Vasich said there were a ‘minimal number of arrests’ and characterized the protesters as ‘begrudgingly cooperative.’

It took about four hours for police to eject the protesters from both the lecture hall and the plaza that had been the site of the encampment.

Shortly before nightfall, officers moved in on the lecture hall and engaged in a tense standoff with protesters at the encampment.

Helmeted police wielding batons formed a line against protesters. They gradually moved forward, pushing the students back every few minutes, until the officers rushed the crowd and made more arrests.

Most demonstrators then retreated and police held the otherwise empty plaza strewn with trash while a few onlookers remained at the periphery.

Twelve protestors were arrested, according to CNN, with many secured with zip ties and led away

There was already an encampment at the university that had been there since April 29

The university said all classes would be held remotely on Thursday, asking employees not to come to campus.

The demonstration at Irvine, about 40 miles south of Los Angeles, is the latest in a series of campus protests across the United States over the war in Gaza.

Activists have called for a ceasefire and the protection of civilian lives while demanding universities divest from Israeli interests.

UC Irvine protesters had established an encampment adjacent to the lecture hall on April 29 similar to those at other universities that have led to mass arrests and clashes with police elsewhere in the country.

On Wednesday 200 to 300 protesters took over the lecture hall at a time when no classes were in session, Vasich said.

Hundreds of anti-Israel protestors descended on the campus on Wednesday afternoon, taking over a lecture hall

Police responded in riot gear and formed a barricade while an officer on a loudspeaker warned the crowd that they had formed an unlawful assembly and risked arrest if they remained, the Orange County Register reported.

Students chanted slogans, banged drums and hoisted banners, with rows of police standing nearby. 

One banner hung from the building declared the site ‘Alex Odeh Hall,’ in honor of a Palestinian activist who was killed in a 1985 office bombing in the nearby city of Santa Ana.

Four adjacent research buildings with potentially hundreds of people inside were locked down, and those inside were instructed to shelter in place.

Since the day the encampment began, Chancellor Howard Gillman said the university has been in talks with students but has been unable to reach an agreement to find an ‘appropriate and non-disruptive’ alternative site.

Protestors are calling for a ceasefire and for the university to divest from Israeli interests

Students chanted slogans, banged drums and hoisted banners, with rows of police standing nearby

Gillman has said the university cannot selectively decide not to enforce rules against the illegal encampment and that ‘The University of California has made it clear it will not divest from Israel.’

‘Encampment protesters have focused most of their demands on actions that would require the university to violate the academic freedom rights of faculty, the free speech rights of faculty and fellow students, and the civil rights of many of our Jewish students,’ Gillman said on Monday. 

Protests have swept university campuses across the country over the past month with classes shut down and hundreds arrested starting at Columbia. 

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Investments in weapons manufacturers and a wide array of other companies by the University of California targeted by students protesting the Israel-Hamas war represent $32 billion – or nearly one-fifth – of the system’s overall assets, the system’s chief investment officer says.

UC Chief Investment Officer Jagdeep Singh Bachher unveiled the estimate Tuesday at the first public Board of Regents meeting since nationwide pro-Palestinian student protests began in April. The calculation was in response to a letter he received last month from the UC Divest Coalition, which is scrutinizing the system’s overall $175 billion in assets.

The group asked for the system to halt its investments in weapons manufacturers, the investment firms Blackstone and BlackRock, and two dozen companies across the entertainment, technology and beverage industries.

Bachher said that would apply to investments that include: $3.3 billion in holdings from groups with ties to weapons manufacturers; $12 billion in U.S. treasuries; $163 million in the investment firm BlackRock and $2.1 billion in bonds that BlackRock manages; $8.6 billion from Blackstone and $3.2 billion from the other 24 companies.

“We pride ourselves on a culture of transparency,” Bachher said, adding that it is important to listen to and engage with students.

The University of California system said last month it would not boycott or divest from Israel, and the regents have not indicated a change in position during this week’s meetings.

In 1986, the regents voted to divest $3.1 billion from companies doing business with South Africa’s apartheid government after more than a year of student protests. The system also dropped its investments in fossil fuels in 2020.

For weeks, students at campuses across the country have been protesting and setting up encampments at their universities to call on them to be more transparent about their investments and to divest from companies that financially support Israel. The demonstrations have led to disruptions, arrests and debates over free speech rights. Tensions between protesters, law enforcement and administration at the University of California, Los Angeles, have garnered some of the most attention.

The protests stem from the current Israel-Hamas conflict which started on Oct. 7 when Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of Gaza’s inhabitants.

In a letter provided to The Associated Press by the UC president’s office, the UC Divest Coalition — which is made up of anti-war student advocates across UC campuses — asked the university system to end any investments in “companies that perpetuate war or weapons manufacturing, including companies that give economic support to the state of Israel, and therefore perpetuate the ongoing occupation and genocide of the Palestinian people.”

“Investment in arms production is antithetical to the UC’s expressed values and the moral concerns of the students, workers, and faculty that the Regents represent,” the letter says.

The United Nation’s top court in January ruled that Israel must do all it can to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza but did not order an end to Israel’s military activities in the territories. The ruling was in response to a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide in violation of international law. Israel has denied that it is committing genocide.

The coalition did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent via email and social media on the letter and the $32 billion estimate.

At a meeting that lasted nearly two-and-a-half hours Tuesday, some students and faculty called for the system to divest from groups with ties to Israel, some faculty raised concerns about antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus, and regents asked investment committee members what it would mean to divest.

Holly Yu, a student studying ethnic studies at the University of California, Merced, urged officials to recognize that students are “expected to continue our everyday lives” as the death toll rises in Gaza.

“Please listen to the voices of your students and stand in solidarity with us by divesting immediately,” Yu said.

Regents said that the question of what it would mean to divest does not have a straight-forward answer.

“We need to be able to articulate to our students that are demanding divestment as to why it’s not so simple,” Regent Jose M. Hernandez said. “It’s not just a matter of selling a coupon and saying ‘okay, we don’t want this, so we’re going to invest in another company.’”

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Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on the social platform X: @sophieadanna

California is trialing alternatives to the gas tax in a bid to raise highway funding, which has been severely depleted by the popularity of electric cars.

The state currently taxes drivers on the gasoline they buy, with Californians on average paying about $300 a year.

This critical gas tax is used to support road maintenance and other transportation projects, with approximately 80 percent of highway and road repairs being funded by it, according to the California Department of Transportation.

Meanwhile, electric car owners pay an annual tax for road repairs, but this comes to about a third of the average gas tax, according to Caltrans’ Road Charge Program.

“What’s happening right now as we see this growth in different types of vehicles… we’re seeing this increasing unfairness in what people are paying,” Lauren Prehoda, manager of the program, told the Los Angeles Times.

The new pilot program will pay Californian drivers of any vehicle type up to $400 to test alternative options for six months starting in August.

It aims to switch from taxing drivers based on fuel consumption to taxing them based on how many miles they drive.

The program will test two alternative taxes, either a flat per-mile rate or an individual rate based on a vehicle’s fuel efficiency, Prehoda told the Times.

The new pilot is the fourth of its kind, as the state continues to try to adapt to the rising numbers of electric cars on the roads.

Drivers in California bought a record number of new electric cars in 2023, a total of 446,961, which was a 29% increase from the previous year, according to nonprofit Veloz and the California Energy Commission.

The state will also ban the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles from 2035 in an effort to reduce impact on climate change.

The new pilot, which is seeking about 800 participants, will focus on testing the collection process and how reliable and fair it is, Prehoda said.

Californian drivers who are interested in joining the pilot scheme are encouraged to sign up online.

People will be told if they have been selected for the scheme in July, and will be asked to register online and select a method for reporting their miles.

Prehoda told the outlet that there will be three different ways to report miles.

“Some are very low tech, some have a location-sharing aspect. It’s up to you to choose what you do,” she said.

She encourages people to sign up to help improve the tax system, and in turn help improve California’s roads.

“This is your opportunity to figure this out together with us; to solve an issue that the state of California has,” Prehoda said, per the Times. “We all need good roads to get around.”