Dozens of people were arrested as police broke up a pro-Palestinian demonstration at a Leiden University campus in The Hague.

Around 200 demonstrators occupied the Wijnhaven building on Turfmarkt at around 1pm on Tuesday, chanting slogans and hanging banners in the hallway calling for the university to cut its ties with Israeli institutions.

Student leaders condemned what they described as heavy-handed police methods after city mayor Jan van Zanen ordered the protestors to be cleared from the building.

“We are deeply shocked at the police violence,” Abdelkader Karbache, chair of the national students’ union LSVb told AD.nl. “The violence escalated so badly that students were being treated like hardened criminals. They were basically beating up children.”

Most of the demonstrators complied with an order to leave the building, the university said, but police arrested 74 people for vandalism and one for doxing. At least one injured person was treated by ambulance workers at the scene.

Locks vandalised

Video footage showed including officers in riot gear using batons to drive back demonstrators towards Centraal Station, while the protestors chanted slogans such as “shame on you”.

A spokesman for Leiden University said the protestors damaged locks to emergency doors and erected barricades in the Wijnhaven building. The demonstration was not announced in advance and some protestors wore facial coverings, breaching campus rules, the spokesman added.

Both Wijnhaven and the Beehive students’ centre, which was also closed during the demonstration, were open as usual on Wednesday morning.

Karache called for dialogue between university leaders and students to resolve the issue. “The authorities are very quick to call in the police,” he said. “They are allowing students to be mistreated and we don’t think that’s the right approach.”