Pro-Palestine protesters take over UCLA in a day of chaos - setting up lines of battle with wooden shields, threatening university bosses and leaving cops bloodied

Two-dozen pro-Palestine protesters have been arrested in a day of chaos at UCLA where cops and students scuffled well into the night.

One cop suffered a bleeding cut to his forehead after being whacked in the forehead while activists were pelted with pepper rounds and rubber bullets.

Protesters used homemade wooden shields to form lines of battle against campus cops and later California Highway Patrol troopers in riot gear.

A protest leader was dramatically plucked out of the front of a crowd mid-sentence as she berated the 'racist police' in front of her, and thrown to the ground.

UCLA vice-chancellor Michael Beck was chased and threatened by a mob of protesters as he was escorted across campus by a squad of police.

The mob repeatedly yelled 'you are not safe' at Beck and repeatedly moved to attack him, only held back by his police guard.

Other videos from the chaotic protest showed masked protesters harassing a rabbi and saying they 'love Jews but hate Zionists', and a facilities management employee calling Palestinians 'terrorists'.

Police said about 3.15pm some 100 protesters occupied Dickson Plaza with tents, canopies, wooden shields, and water-filled barriers.

Videos showed they marched fake bloodied bodies around the area in a 'funeral procession' for civilians killed during Israel's military action in Gaza.

Protesters also dumped red dye in the fountain and red paint on the Janss Steps leading to the square, claiming UCLA had 'blood on its hands'.

Police arrived and demanded they disperse about 6pm, which they did - only to move to another area of campus, the Kerckhoff patio, and set up again.

This included tents, canopies, and barricades with patio furniture and activists also stormed nearby Moore Hall and disrupted final exams, police said.

Again police were able to kick them out, but the protest simply moved to the courtyard between Dodd Hall and the School of Law.

This was where they decided to make their final stand, setting up barricades with heavy metal furniture and forming lines with their shields.

The protesters faced off with about 50 campus police, LAPD, Culver City Police Department, and California Highway Patrol officers.

Scenes resembled a late-antiquity battle as the two sides pressed against each other in the streets, courtyards, and alleys around that area of campus.

Protesters chanted: 'No justice, no peace, no racist police.'

One video showed a small group of protesters trapped between two hedges and two lines of a police, who were arrested after not knowing where to retreat to.

During the same confrontation, video showed a policeman being hit in the head by a protester, whom he quickly chased down and tackled.

The protest devolved into skirmishes between cops and protesters and police said 25 people were arrested about 8pm for refusing to leave.

They were given citations for willful disruption of university operations and banned from being near UCLA property for 14 days.

'As a result of the unauthorized and unlawful encampments at the three locations, the group damaged the Shapiro fountain, spray-painted brick walkways, tampered with fire safety equipment, damaged patio furniture, stripped wire from electrical fixtures, and vandalized vehicles,' police alleged.

The arrested students were detained in Dodd Hall while they were processed, prompting many of the remaining activists to move there.

They crowded around the entrance to the building and demanded the release of their 'comrades', reforming battle lines and skirmishing with police.

'We just want you to free our people,' one protester yelled. Another added: 'There's a genocide going on and you guys are arresting and brutalizing students!'

This part of the protest was where the woman was suddenly grabbed by police as she berated them with a loudspeaker. 

Inside the melee during the night, a rabbi filmed himself being threatened by masked protesters.

One called him a 'f**king pedophile' and told him to 'go back to Poland, Ukraine, where you're really f**king from'.

One of them was wearing a hat reading '1492,' a reference to the year Jews were violently kicked out of Catholic Spain.

Chaos continued for hours until the protesters finally dispersed soon after midnight when police were firing rubber bullets and pepper rounds.