By Staff, Agencies The protests are inspired by similar actions across the United States that have seen thousands of college students arrested for holding out in encampments from New York to Los Angeles. The demonstrators at UCL have said they are for the long haul as they put out an appeal for supplies on social media.

They have joined a number of tent camps at universities in Bristol, Manchester and Warwick.

At Goldsmiths, another university in London, students forced their way into the college library earlier this week protesting the “Israeli” war on the besieged Gaza Strip.

Images posted to social media site X, formerly Twitter, showed half a dozen green and orange tents being erected on a square near the main entrance of UCL at Gower Street.

A banner was unfurled in the middle of the square that read: “UCL students against genocide.” On Friday, dozens attended a pro-Palestine gathering outside with British-Palestinian plastic surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta, who recently spent time in Gaza hospitals, delivering a speech.

One local report said that the students had said they were “planning to stay here for the long haul till their demands are met”.

It is not the first time UCL students have launched protests against the war in Gaza.

Last month, students concluded a 34-day occupation of a lecture theatre after securing a meeting with the provost of UCL to demand scholarships for Palestinian students from Gaza, to end UCL’s partnership with “Tel Aviv” University and to call for UCL to cut ties with arms companies