There were moments of tension at Rome's La Sapienza University on Tuesday after a group of left wing students on Monday occupied the dean's office in protest at links with Israel and in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Trouble broke out between students and police when several young people attempted to enter the rectorate where a meeting of the groups that had occupied the building was taking place.
They had said they were occupying the office to denounce the university's "complicity" with Israel, with its Senate set to decide on further cooperation with Israel on academic projects on Tuesday.
"Enough deals with Israeli universities and the war industry," said the Cambiare Rotta (Change Course) group.
Noemi Di Segni, the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, last week expressed concern over the growing expressions of hatred towards Jews and Israel in Italian universities amid the war in Gaza sparked by the October 7 massacres by Hamas.
There is "a worrying escalation in universities, with expressions of hatred towards Israel and Jews that in recent weeks have reached levels of very serious concern" said Di Segni in a letter addressed to University Minister Anna Maria Bernini and the president of the Conference of Italian University Rectors (CRUI) Giovanna Iannantuoni.
The letter came after Turin University's Academic Senate decided not to participate in a call for scientific cooperation with Israel and La Repubblica editor Maurizio Molinari was de-platformed at a Naples university.
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