The police were unsuccessful on Tuesday evening in removing pro-Palestinian occupiers from a building at Radboud University in Nijmegen. Officers continue to secure the site. Occupiers leaving the building are being arrested.
In recent hours, officers have attempted to end the occupation peacefully, according to the Gelderland Police on X. Additionally, “behind the scenes, an intervention has been sought to end the occupation by force if necessary.”
The police do not want to jeopardize the safety of emergency services and the occupiers. The protesters are barricading themselves in a laboratory where life-threatening gases can be released. This is only risky for those present. The police report that the area is being monitored and no one can access the building.
The police were ordered to clear the building on Tuesday evening. The Explosives Ordnance Disposal and riot police also arrived at the scene. An unknown number of protesters have been occupying a magnet laboratory in the Goudsmit Pavilion on Heyendaalseweg since Tuesday morning.
Earlier in the evening, officers sawed pro-Palestinian demonstrators loose from pipes in front of the entrance to which they had attached themselves, an ANP reporter saw on site. From inside the occupied building, there was banging on the windows.
‘Limit has been reached’
“This is a life-threatening situation that endangers the safety of the activists,” the university stated at the start of the occupation. “The limit has been reached,” said Mayor Hubert Bruls of Nijmegen. “It is no longer a demonstration when a dangerous situation is deliberately created in which the occupiers endanger their lives.”
Bruls also reported that the large-scale deployment of emergency services meant that “their deployment elsewhere in society is not possible.” “I do not accept that. I urge the occupiers to end this action peacefully.”
The activists occupying the Goudsmit Pavilion demand that Radboud University seriously ties with Israel. There have been more frequent pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the university. In May, Radboud stopped collaborating with two Israeli universities because of their “contributions to serious and systematic human rights violations” in the Palestinian Territories.
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