Police began dismantling a pro-Palestinian Arab encampment at DePaul University in Chicago on Thursday, hours after the school's president told students to leave the area or face arrest, The Associated Press reported.
Officers and workers in yellow vests cleared out tents and camping equipment at the student encampment, leaving behind yellow squares of dead or dying grass where the tents had stood. Front-loaders were being used to remove the camping equipment.
All of the protesters at the encampment “voluntarily left” the area when police arrived early Thursday, said Jon Hein, chief of patrol for the Chicago Police Department.
“There were no confrontations and there was no resistance,” he said at a news briefing. “As we approached, all the subjects voluntarily left the area.”
Hein said, however, that two people, a male and female in their 20s, were arrested outside the encampment “for obstruction of traffic.”
DePaul President Robert Manuel said in a statement that one of those arrested is a current DePaul student and the second is a former student.
The move to clear the campus comes less than a week after the school's president said public safety was at risk, according to AP.
The encampment at De Paul is one of several pro-Palestinian Arab protest encampments that have been set up at campuses across the US in recent weeks.
Last Thursday, LAPD and California Highway Patrol cleared an anti-Israel protest encampment on the UCLA campus, arresting 132 people.
Later, the Los Angeles Police Department removed a pro-Palestinian Arab encampment at the University of Southern California, pushing several dozen people out of the campus gates.
In another incident, police in riot gear cleared an anti-Israel encampment at the University of Chicago.
On Wednesday, tensions at the University of California, Irvine campus escalated as a group of several hundred pro-Palestinian Arab protesters entered a lecture hall and surrounded the building.
The Irvine Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff's Department were called to the scene after the university called for mutual aid from local law enforcement agencies. Authorities arrested some of the protesters.