After establishing two encampments at Oxford University, pro-Palestinian activists occupied a campus building and gained access to the vice chancellor’s office. The police arrested 16 people. 

“Now, it is evident that the Administration would rather arrest, silence, and verbally assault its own students rather than confront its enabling of israel’s genocide in Gaza,” the activist group Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P) said. 

The university claims that, on Tuesday, a delegation of faculty supportive of the encampment met with senior colleagues and urged the university to enter “negotiations” with Oxford Action for Palestine. On Wednesday, members of that faculty delegation represented themselves as the Oxford Action for Palestine “negotiating team” and, in email to the vice chancellor, demanded formal meetings and blanket amnesty, as well as threatened escalatory action if the university did not respond in 24 hours. 

The next day, the Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P) group began what it calls a “peaceful sit-in” around 8 A.M. at the Oxford University Vice Chancellor’s office in the Wellington Square office building. The student activists claim that they said they would leave the building if the administration agreed to meet for negotiations, and Tracey chose to evacuate the building and summon the police. 

“Contrary to claims by OA4P, or to selectively edited videos posted online, this was not a peaceful sit-in, but a violent action that included forcibly overpowering the receptionist, and then entry into the Vice-Chancellor’s office while she was on a call, shouting and starting to barricade the doors,” the university said in a statement released Thursday.

“When informed of the threat of arrest, the students willingly stood up and voluntary offered to vacate the premises,” the Oxford Action for Palestine group said in a statement. “In an escalatory move, all students were arrested and their phones were confiscated, taking away their ability to record or film from inside.”

The Oxford Action for Palestine group released a graphic on social media saying, “Support needed: Arrests being made at Wellington Square. We need people now!” Shortly thereafter, over a hundred protesters had gathered outside Wellington Square to rally in support of the students occupying the building. Videos shared online by observers show students cheering and pounding their fists from inside the building, while outside demonstrators applauded. The student-run publication the Cherwell reported that around 150 people rallied outside. 

“Our community members mobilised to block the exits and prevent police from leaving with the arrested students, but the police have violently pushed and thrown demonstrators to the floor,” the activist group claims, which posted footage of physical confrontations between police officers and protesters outside of the Wellington Square buildings. At least one person was removed from the building in a stretcher. 

Video footage shared on social media by an observer shows at least 30 protesters sitting and standing in the road to block police cars and vans.

The Thames Valley Police arrested 16 people on suspicion of aggravated trespass, and one of those people has also been arrested on suspicion of common assault, according to a statement by the police. The Oxford Action for Palestine group claims that all 16 people arrested were students. 

“It has come – needlessly – to this,” Oxford philosophy professor Amir Srinivasan wrote on social media. “Oxford’s senior administration calls the cops on its own students for sitting-in, arresting sixteen. A massively disproportionate response, and a sad day for Oxford.”

The university claimed in a statement that senior leadership has regularly met with registered student societies, including the Oxford Palestine Society, the Islamic Society, and the Jewish Society.

On May 6, Oxford Action for Palestine established an encampment outside the Pitt Rivers Museum, which has grown to over 60 tents. On Sunday, May 19, the group established a second encampment and erected about 15 tents outside of the Radcliffe Camera.