Anti-Israel agitators arrested at UC Irvine claim to be professors: 'out here supporting my students'
The university said 50 people were arrested as authorities dismantled an anti-Israel encampment on the Southern California campus
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Some of the anti-Israel agitators who were arrested Wednesday as authorities dismantled an anti-Israel encampment on the University of California, Irvine campus, claimed to be professors at the college.
At least 47 people were arrested after hundreds of protesters swarmed the campus and set up barricades, the university said Thursday. The chaos began when several hundred protesters entered the Physical Sciences Lecture Hall on the California campus and began to barricade the building, a university spokesperson previously told Fox News Digital.
On Thursday, the school moved to remote operations.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Video footage captured by KTTV shows a man who was being arrested claiming to be a UCI faculty member.
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A man who claimed to be a faculty member at the University of California, Irvine was arrested Wednesday during an anti-Israel protest. (KTTV)
"I am a faculty member at the University of California, Irvine," he told a reporter as he was being led away by police in handcuffs. "I'm out here supporting my students who have the right to peacefully protest."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"And unlike the people who are escorting me right now -- I think they're people – my students are not interested in violence. They're only interested in drawing attention to a genocide."
In another video that circulated online, a woman claims to be a tenured UCI professor in the Global and International Studies department. Aside from criticizing Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip, she denounced the police response to the protest.
"These young people are going to be the ones that are going to pay the price for these horrible decisions," she screamed while being walked off campus in handcuffs. "These police officers out here today, that's thousands of student scholarships. Thousands of students could have been able to go to school and have books and have housing."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"But instead, our chancellor, who is a cruel man, decided to send thousands of dollars worth of state funding paid for by the taxpayers into the trash," she added. "What job do I have if students don't have a future?"
Demonstrators gather as law enforcement officers are deployed to the University of California, Irvine after protesters against the war in Gaza surrounded the physical sciences lecture hall. (REUTERS/Mike Blake)
Fox News Digital has reached out to UCI.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Most of those arrested Wednesday were taken into custody on suspicion of failure to disperse after a direct police order and trespassing.
During the police response, Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan said it was "a shame that peaceful free speech protests are always responded to with violence. Taking space on campus or in a building is not a threat to anyone."
"UCI leadership must do everything they can to avoid creating a violent scenario here. These are your students w/ zero weapons," she wrote on X.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Will O'Neill, the mayor of nearby Newport Beach, responded.
Demonstrators gather as law enforcement officers are deployed to the University of California, Irvine. (REUTERS/Mike Blake)
"Police officers from Newport Beach are currently in Irvine providing assistance at the request of a mutual aid call," he wrote. "Your careless wording makes it appear that you are preemptively accusing our officers, and officers from the many law enforcement agencies who responded, of violence. If that’s what you meant, then your message is beneath the office of Mayor. If it is not, then clarify immediately."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The UCI Divest protest group said its demands that UCI divest itself from Israel was "met with riot police and 9 different police departments."