German police arrested five students who participated in an anti-Israel protest at Humboldt University in Berlin, where they chanted antisemitic slogans and vandalized school property.
The unruly demonstration came as authorities in Germany continued to work to address the growing surge in antisemitism and pro-Hamas activism across the country.
A group of students took over several buildings at Humboldt University, a public research university in central Berlin, and staged a demonstration against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. They also called on the state government to halt the deportation of four Hamas sympathizers who participated in raucous anti-Israel protests and, according to German authorities, “pose a threat to public order.”
In the buildings, the students put up banners bearing slogans such as “You are complicit in genocide,” “There is only one state, Palestine 48,” and “Intifada until victory.”
They also defaced university property with banned slogans, including “Zionism is fascism” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which the German government prohibited last year for promoting the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel.
There were also around 40 to 60 people outside the buildings staging a demonstration and chanting slogans such as “Freedom for Palestine,” “Boycott Israel,” “No borders, no deportations,” “Germany is a fascist country,” and “Resistance is an international right.”
After the university administration requested the removal of the protesters, local police intervened and arrested at least five people.
The European Jewish Congress, the representative umbrella organization of European Jewry, condemned the incident, stating that “hate must never be normalized.”
“Such hateful and inflammatory rhetoric fosters an atmosphere where Jewish students feel unsafe, unwelcome, and targeted,” the group wrote in a post on X. “These aren’t just words on a wall, they contribute to a climate of fear and exclusion.”
“Hate must never be normalized. Not in our societies, and not in our universities.”
