Pro-Palestinian protesters arrested after occupying University of Washington building
Police arrested about 30 pro-Palestinian protesters who occupied a University of Washington engineering building and demanded the school break ties with Boeing.
Students from the group Super UW moved into the Interdisciplinary Engineering Building in Seattle on Monday evening and unofficially renamed it after Shaban al-Dalou, a teenage engineering student who was killed along with his mother after an Israeli airstrike caused an inferno outside of a Gaza hospital.
The students demanded that the university sever all ties with Boeing, including returning any Boeing donations and barring the company's employees from teaching at or otherwise influencing the school.
Boeing has donated over $100 million to UW since 1917, including $10 million for the engineering building, The Seattle Times reported. Because of Boeing's donation, the aviation manufacturer was granted naming rights for the building's second level.
Boeing is a key supplier to the Israeli Defense Forces, and the country has received more military aid from the U.S. than any other country since World War II.
'We're hoping to remove the influence of Boeing and other manufacturing companies from our educational space, period, and we're hoping to expose the repressive tactics of the university,' Super UW spokesperson Eric Horford told KOMO News.
People dressed in black blocked the front of the building with furniture and used dumpsters to block a nearby road, university officials said.
UW police worked with Seattle police to clear the building at around 10:30 p.m., UW spokesperson Victor Balta said in a statement. The people were taken into custody on charges of trespassing, property destruction and disorderly conduct, he said. Their cases have been referred to the King County prosecutors.
Any students identified will be referred to the Student Conduct Office, Balta said.
The U.S. Department of Education said in a statement Tuesday that the incident will be investigated.
'The Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism appreciates the university's strong statement condemning last night's violence and applauds the quick action by law enforcement officers to remove violent criminals from the university campus,' the statement said. 'While these are good first steps, the university must do more to deter future violence and guarantee that Jewish students have a safe and productive learning environment."
The Trump administration has argued universities have allowed antisemitism to go unchecked at campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza and has opened investigations at colleges, frozen federal funding and detained and deported several foreign students with ties to pro-Palestinian protests.
Additionally, Israel's government on Monday approved plans to seize the Gaza Strip and to stay in the Palestinian territory for an unspecified amount of time, a move that, if implemented, would vastly expand Israel's operations there and likely draw fierce international opposition.
The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Israel says 59 captives remain in Gaza. Twenty-one of them are still believed to be alive.
Israel's ensuing offensive has killed more than 52,000 people in Gaza, many of them women and children, according to Palestinian health officials, who don't distinguish between combatants and civilians in their count.
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