Police on Wednesday appeared to take back control of a lecture hall from pro-Palestinian protesters who for several hours occupied a building at the University of California, Irvine, a university spokesperson said, Reuters reports.

Officers from about 10 nearby law-enforcement agencies converged on the campus after university officials requested help, said Sergeant Karie Davies, spokesperson for the Irvine Police Department.

Police would not release the number of arrests until the operation was over, Davies said, but she confirmed some people had been handcuffed.

“The police have retaken the lecture hall,” UC Irvine spokesperson Tom Vasich said by telephone. “I do not have confirmation of it, but I do see police officers up in the second-floor balcony and around the front of the building.” Banners that the demonstrators had hung from the balconies were taken down, Vasich said.

The university declared the takeover a “violent protest” shortly before 3pm (2300 GMT) and the building appeared to have been retaken less than four hours later.

The demonstration at Irvine, about 65 kilometre south of Los Angeles, is the latest in a series of campus protests across the United States over the onslaught in Gaza in which activists have called for a ceasefire and the protection of civilian lives while demanding universities divest from Israeli interests.