Bern streets suffered millions of francs in damages due to vandalism and exchanges of projectiles between activists and police after a Saturday anti-Israel protest devolved into intense riots, according to a statement by the Bern Cantonal Police and videos published by organizing activist groups.
Eighteen police officers were wounded during the clashes, with four needing to be examined at a hospital. Bern police said that they escaped more significant injury thanks to their protective equipment. Nine police vehicles were damaged or vandalized, and along the march route, windows, ATMs, and building facades were smashed or spray-painted. At least 700 people were arrested.
Activists were well prepared
Activists, who, according to images and videos shared by both parties, came prepared in black bloc with goggles, masks, and other protective wear, attacked officers with chairs, signs, stones, bottles, fire extinguishers, fireworks, and lasers. Police returned fire with water cannons, chemical irritants, rubber bullets, and batons.
Videos posted on social media by activist groups showed protesters taking cover from water cannons, and riot police being surrounded and bombarded by patio furniture.
In the Schauplatzgasse area, protesters set fire to trash, creating a plume of black smoke that had to be extinguished by emergency services.
Some of those detained face charges for breach of peace, property damage, trespassing, assault, arson, use of explosives, obstruction of justice, violence and threats against authorities, theft, and violation of a ban on wearing masks.
Support for the riots
Student Coordination for Palestine University of Geneva, one of the involved groups, accused the police of excessive force and repression in a series of Instagram stories.
The group claimed that 10,000 activists had participated in the rally.
BDS Neuchatel said on Instagram on September 20 that the October 11 protest was the culmination of a week of demonstrations to mark two years of conflict between Israel and Hamas. The Saturday protest sought to disrupt what the group saw as Swiss complicity in a supposed genocide through financial ties with Israel and by serving as the "cradle of Zionism."
"Since the Al-Aqsa Flood [October 7 Massacre], it has become clear that decolonization is not a theoretical concept but a material reality that must be fought on all fronts," said the BDS chapter. "The liberation of Palestine must not be left to the Palestinian people alone; the fight must be waged at the very heart of imperialism — in the belly of the beast."
On October 3, another participating organization, Association Palestine, boasted that the upcoming protest would be disruptive.
"The era of pacifism is over," the group said on Instagram.
Many participants wore keffiyehs and waved Palestinian flags, some emblazoned with the inverted red triangles used in Hamas propaganda to denote a target. Still, other protesters appeared to represent other ideological factions. Counter-Attack and Autonomy described itself on Instagram as a revolutionary group seeking radical transformation of society. Communist and antifa flags were seen waving in the crowd, and many of the participants wore the black bloc clothing associated with Antifa.