German police were clearing pro-Palestinian activists on Tuesday evening after they occupied the main lecture hall at Leipzig University in the east of the country.
Leipzig University had decided in favour of an eviction and had informed the police, the university announced in the evening, adding that the police operation was currently under way.
"We will not tolerate the violent disruption of teaching activities and the seizure of university premises," the statement said.
The decision to clear the protesters was unavoidable, as there was an imminent danger to the safety of all students and lecturers, it added.
According to the university, around 50 to 60 people occupied the lecture hall and the inner courtyard on Leipzig University's city centre campus on Tuesday afternoon.
They unfurled banners with slogans like "University occupation against genocide."
The largely masked occupiers declared that they were fighting for Palestine on campus, barricaded the lecture hall doors from the inside, blocked access from the outside with sit-in blockades and erected tents in the inner courtyard.
There were also protests against the occupation.
The police wrote on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday evening that around a dozen pro-Palestinian sympathizers were occupying the lecture hall, and there were supporters in the immediate area.
Rector Eva Inés Obergfell said: "Protests and demonstrations are fundamentally legitimate as long as they pursue the goal of information and understanding.
"Endangering bystanders and escalation, on the other hand, are not an acceptable form of liberal confrontation."
The university has filed a criminal complaint. Teaching in the lecture hall will remain suspended for the rest of the week, she said.
German police had earlier Tuesday broken up a pro-Palestinian student protest at Berlin's Free University.
Around 150 activists of the Student Coalition Berlin group occupied the university courtyard with tents on Tuesday morning in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The group called for the occupation of other German universities and demanded an end to "colonial oppression."
The university had announced it would swiftly put a halt to the protest and called the police, who first blocked off the area and then gradually cleared the camp in the afternoon.
On the sidelines there were a few scuffles between police officers and people from neighbouring university buildings.
Protesters shouted slogans such as "Viva, viva, Palestina!" Police spokesman Michael Gassen said that banned slogans were also shouted out, without giving further details.
Certain slogans that are deemed anti-Semitic have been banned by German authorities, which have monitored pro-Palestinian demos closely since the war in Gaza began.
Preliminary proceedings were initiated against some protesters on possible charges including trespassing, resistance and suspected incitement, as well as proceedings for participation in an unauthorized assembly.
The university partially suspended teaching on Tuesday. "This form of protest is not aimed at dialogue. An occupation is not acceptable on the FU Berlin campus. We are available for academic dialogue - but not in this way," said University President Günter Ziegler.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany criticized the university management. The occupation "clearly shows the fanatical character of the groups involved," said the council's president Josef Schuster in a statement on Tuesday.
"The hatred of Israel and the anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic background of the action is obvious and is part of these people's DNA," said Schuster.
Berlin's Governing Mayor Kai Wegner condemned the occupation. "We must not look the other way when anti-Semitic slogans and hatred of Jews are spread at universities," he said, without providing details on what he considered hateful comments.
Germany is among Israel's staunchest allies, and political leaders in Berlin have repeatedly stated that Israel has a right to self defence in the wake of the October 7 attacks by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in which 1,200 people on the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip were killed.
On Friday, an estimated 150 activists protested at Humboldt University in Berlin.
The protesters demanded a lecture theatre as the venue for the rally, which the university management refused to grant. Police later opened 37 investigations into possible cases of incitement to hatred and resisting law enforcement officers.
For more than two weeks, there have been protests at numerous universities in the United States, Britain and other countries against the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip.
