The campus protests over the Israeli-Hamas conflict spread from the US to other countries like Australia, France, Mexico and Canada, reports AFP.
Hundreds of supporters of Israel and Gaza faced off at a Sydney university Friday, bringing echoes of US college protests and Middle East tumult to a campus and continent on the other side of the world.
Rival demonstrators came eye-to-eye shouting slogans and waving flags. Still, except for a few heated exchanges, the protest and counterprotest passed off peacefully.
But it was another sign that the war in Gaza, approaching its seventh month, and the long-rumbling US culture wars are roiling politics oceans away.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have been camped for 10 days on a green lawn in front of the University of Sydney's sprawling Gothic sandstone edifice-a bastion of Australian academia.
The dozens of tents festooned with banners and Palestinian flags have become a focal point for hundreds of protesters-students and otherwise-who oppose Israel's ground invasion and bombardment of Gaza.
Deaglan Godwin, a 24-year-old arts and science student and one of the camp's organisers, said US protests were both an inspiration and a warning.
New York's Columbia University, the scene of police crackdowns and mass arrests, inspired "us to set up our own camp", Godwin said.
He said Columbia is "also now a warning, a warning that the government is willing to use quite lethal, brutal force in order to put down Palestinian protesters".
Similar to their US counterparts, the protesters want to see Sydney University cut ties with Israeli institutions and reject funding from arms companies.
Sydney University administrators are keen not to replicate the US experience.
Vice-chancellor Mark Scott has written to students and staff expressing a "commitment to freedom of expression" and has not called on the police to dismantle the camp.
Australian police were conspicuously absent even during Friday's protests, which brought about 100 pro-Israel counterprotesters face-to-face with 400 demonstrators at the pro-Palestinian camp.
Public order and riot squad vehicles were parked well out of view, on the periphery of the campus.
Security was left to university guards who exchanged jokes with each other about their ill-fitting high visibility coats while forming a very porous separating barrier between the opposing camps.
A few inquisitive Chinese students stopped to take a look on the edges of the demonstration, while the media surveyed the scene and a right-wing vlogger hunted for any hint of confrontation or violence.
But like the United States, allegations of extremism have been levelled at Sydney's pro-Palestinian protesters.
Police on Friday entered the Sciences Po university in Paris to remove dozens of students staging a pro-Gaza sit-in in the entrance hall, AFP journalists saw, as protests fire political debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
One student, who identified himself as a representative of the Palestine Committee named Hicham, said university authorities had given the group 20 minutes to leave before the forcible evacuation because of "exams to be held from Monday".
"The chief of police deployed law enforcement to evacuate the Sciences Po site... 91 people were removed without incident," the Paris police headquarters said.
Bastien, 22, told AFP he and other protesters had been peacefully brought out in groups of 10 by officers.
But another student, Lucas, working towards a master's degree, said "some were dragged and others gripped by the head or shoulders".
Administrators had closed Sciences Po's main buildings on Friday in response to the sit-in and called for remote classes instead.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal's office said such protests would be dealt with using "total rigour", adding that 23 university sites had been "evacuated" on Thursday.
Dozens of pro-Palestinian students from Mexico's largest university camped out Thursday in solidarity with similar protests that have swept colleges in the United States.
Mounting flags and chanting "Long live free Palestine," the protesters set up tents in front of the National Autonomous University of Mexico's (UNAM) head office in Mexico City.
The students called on the Mexican government to break diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel.
"We are here to support Palestine, the people who are in Palestine, and the student camps in the United States," said Valentino Pino, a 19-year-old philosophy student.
Jimena Rosas, 21, said she hoped the protest would have a domino effect and spread to other universities in the country.
"Once people see that UNAM is beginning to mobilize, other universities should start as well," she said.
Dozens of universities in the United States have seen pro-Palestinian demonstrations in recent weeks, leading to clashes with police and counter-protests.
The Gaza war started when Hamas militants staged an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 that left around 1,170 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 34,500 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.
Israel's Iron Dome defence system has long shielded it from incoming rockets. Now it is building a "cyber dome" to defend against online attacks, especially from arch foe Iran.
"It is a silent war, one which is not visible," said Aviram Atzaba, the Israeli National Cyber Directorate's head of international cooperation.
While Israel has fought Hamas in Gaza since the October 7 attack, it has also faced a significant increase in cyberattacks from Iran and its allies, Atzaba said.
"They are trying to hack everything they can," he told AFP, pointing to Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah movement but adding that so far "they have not succeeded in causing any real damage".
He said around 800 significant attacks had been thwarted since the war erupted. Among the targets were government organisations, the military and civil infrastructure.
Some attacks could not be foiled, including against hospitals in the cities of Haifa and Safed in which patient data was stolen.
While Israel already has cyber defences, they long consisted of "local efforts that were not connected", Atzaba said.
Reuters adds: Police forcibly removed scores of defiant pro-Palestinian protesters at several colleges on Thursday, including taking down an encampment at UCLA in a jarring scene that underscored the heightened chaos that has erupted at universities this week.
In the pre-dawn hours, helmeted police swarmed a tent city set up at the University of California in Los Angeles, using flash bangs and riot gear to push through lines of protesters who linked arms in a futile attempt to halt their advance.
Los Angeles police said on social media that 210 people were arrested at UCLA, and hundreds of arrests were made at other universities overnight and on Thursday.
"I'm a student here," one UCLA protester told cameras as he was led away, his hands bound. "Please don't fail us. Don't fail us."
Hours later, the student, who would only give his first name as Ryan, was back on campus and vowed he would not stop fighting.
"We will be back," said Ryan, who was cited for unlawful assembly. "We will be disrupting. We will be demanding divestment."
Students have rallied or set up tents at dozens of universities in recent days to protest Israel's war on Gaza. Demonstrators have called on President Joe Biden, who has supported Israel's right to defend itself, to do more to stop the bloodshed in Gaza and demanded schools divest from companies that support Israel's government.
Many of the schools, including Columbia University in New York City, have called in police to quell the protests.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault said on Thursday the encampment at Montreal's McGill University should be dismantled as more students erected pro-Palestinian camps across some of Canada's largest universities, demanding they divest from groups with ties to Israel.
The Canadian protests come as police have been arresting hundreds on U.S. campuses and the death toll in Gaza has been mounting.
While McGill had requested police intervention, law enforcement had not stepped in Thursday to clear the encampment and said in a statement Thursday evening it was monitoring the situation.
Students also set up encampments at Canadian schools including the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia and the University of Ottawa.
"We want the camp to be dismantled. We trust the police, let them do their job," a spokesperson for Legault said.
Britain on Friday imposed sanctions on two "extremist" groups and four individuals in Israel who it blamed for violence in the West Bank, its latest package of measures against Israeli settlers.
Britain's Foreign Office named Hilltop Youth and Lehava as two groups which it said were known to have supported, incited and promoted violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank.
The four individuals sanctioned were responsible for human rights abuses against these communities, the statement added.
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Among them are Noam Federman, who has trained settler groups in committing violence and Elisha Yered, who has justified killing Palestinians on religious grounds.
Violence in the West Bank was already on the rise before Israel's assault on Gaza, which was triggered by an Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.
It has escalated since, with stepped-up Israeli military raids, settler violence and Palestinian street attacks.
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British foreign minister David Cameron said extremist settlers were undermining security and stability and threatening the prospects for peace.
"The Israeli authorities must clamp down on those responsible. The UK will not hesitate to take further action if needed, including through further sanctions," he said.
Those sanctioned will be subject to financial and travel restrictions. Britain previously imposed sanctions on four Israeli nationals in February.
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