Pro-Palestine student protesters have begun establishing camps at UK universities in an attempt to cause the same kind of sit-in disruption seen at American institutions over the last few days and weeks.

Students at top English universities - Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield - have set up tents and marquees, and have hoisted anti-Israel banners and Palestinian flags on buildings and in open spaces.

One of the encampments at a piazza at Warwick University has been in place for almost a week, with student campaign groups claiming Warwick is "continu[ing] to reject our demands to cut ties with genocide", and professing to "rise up in unison with fellow students all over the world, from Columbia, NYC, to Paris, to Sydney".

Many of the demonstrations have called for their universities to cut financial ties with Israel or Israeli companies in light of the country's ongoing military response in Palestine to the October 7 Hamas attacks.

Protesters at Goldsmiths, University of London, have staged sit-ins, while demonstrators at Warwick have established a week-long camp at a campus piazza

At Manchester, protests starting on May 1 have elicited official university responses; while the institution's Chief Operating Officer, Patrick Hackett, said it was "incredibly important that people are able to exercise free speech within the law", he urged protesters not to block access to study and work spaces with exams looming.

While at Goldsmiths, University of London, students established camps overnight at the university library and stuck banners to windows stating "from the river to the sea" and "shut it down for Palestine", claiming they would not leave "until senior management come to face us".

Yesterday's demonstrations followed large-scale "May Day" action across the UK which saw protesters blockade BAE Systems facilities and a government department over their ties to UK arms exports to Israel.

And the university encampments and sit-ins directly mirror those seen at institutions on the other side of the Atlantic; this week, activists camping out at UCLA in Los Angeles, Northeastern University in Boston, and Columbia University in New York have clashed with campus authorities and city police alike.