German police cleared about 150 pro-Palestinian Arab demonstrators from a Berlin university on Thursday, The Associated Press reports.

Activists had occupied several rooms of the Humboldt University’s Institute for Social Sciences in downtown Berlin on Wednesday.

Student Coalition Berlin, the group which organized the protest, called in a statement posted on social media for the university to “take an active role in ending the genocide against the people of Palestine and their decades-long suffering.”

University administrators agreed after talks with protest leaders to let them stay until Thursday evening. But they called in the police when some of them refused to leave, German news agency dpa reported.

A police spokeswoman said that, while some of the demonstrators left voluntarily, police officers had to lead others from the building. Police said about 130 people were briefly detained during the operation, in which officers broke through several barricaded doors.

Student protests over the war in Gaza that began in the United States have spread to university campuses in many European countries as well.

Berlin authorities have taken a tough line against anti-Israeli demonstrations, urging police to step in if demonstrators use slogans that could incite hatred against Jews, according to AP.

In addition to the protests, the number of antisemitic crimes in Germany has risen sharply since Hamas’ October 7 attack in Israel.

In one incident, a synagogue in the German capital of Berlin was firebombed by two assailants. The incident is being investigated as a hate crime.

In late October, police in the western German city of Essen arrested a man who plotted to attack a pro-Israel demonstration.