Dozens have been arrested after pro-Palestinian activists started fires and occupied a building on the University of Washington campus in Seattle on Monday.
The activists were demanding the university cut all ties with the weapons manufacturer Boeing, which has sold weapons to Israel.
The protest saw dozens of individuals enter the Interdisciplinary Engineering Building and erect barricades using furniture. Many of the protesters covered their faces, according to the university.
The group behind the action, Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return (SUPER-UW), told Seattle news website Komo it aimed to “remove the influence of Boeing and other manufacturing companies from our educational space”.
A banner was hung from an upper window and the group demanded the building be renamed after a Palestinian student said to have been killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Outside the building, a separate group dressed in black blocked nearby streets by overturning large bins. They reportedly confronted a university security officer before he left the scene.
Victor Balta, a university spokesman, told CNN: “Individuals who mostly covered their faces blocked access to two streets outside the building, blocked entrances and exits to the building and ignited fires in two dumpsters on a street outside.”
He said “about 30 individuals” inside the building had been arrested. He added that country prosecutors were looking at charges including trespass, property destruction, disorderly conduct and conspiracy.
Boeing, which has a long-standing relationship with the university, is one of the world’s largest aerospace and defence companies, and a key supplier to the Israeli military.
In November last year the Israeli defence ministry said it had signed $5.2 billion agreement to acquire 25 next generation F-15 fighter jets from Boeing.
In a statement, the university said: “To the best of our knowledge, everyone connected to the University of Washington who does not want to be inside the building has left. Individuals remaining in the building are trespassing and will face legal and student conduct actions.”
The protest follows similar actions on US campuses in recent months. In March, Columbia University in New York suspended and expelled several students involved in a building occupation, amid growing scrutiny of campus protests linked to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
