This story is developing and will continue to be updated.
The Gaza Solidarity Encampment has now been fully cleared from College Green, and the remaining trash trucks have exited the area.
Several students and faculty looked through fences on the perimeter of the College Green area as officers from Penn Division of Public Safety and the Philadelphia Police Department remain on the east side of campus. The sweep took less than an hour and a half, and was finished by 9 a.m.
Around five Penn employees were seen carrying out tents, signs, flags, backpacks, and other belongings from the encampment and loading them into at least two trash trucks parked on Locust Walk, which pulled up immediately after arrests. The belongings were shredded in the truck.
A Penn employee also removed a keffiyeh off the Ben Franklin statue, as well as tape covering his mouth and a bandage over his eyes.
Six-foot barricades currently surround College Green on all four sides. There is a perimeter between Fisher Fine Arts Library and the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, as well as a perimeter of barricades blocking off Locust Walk.
Before the sweep, organizers were seen moving supplies out of the encampment in Penn Residential carts and moving them near Fisher Fine Arts Library. Organizers are currently looking for those bins and talking to police to try and locate them.
Police officers were preventing students from entering the College Green area from the direction of 34th and Walnut streets.
“The area of College Green remains closed. Buildings are accessible via PennCard access,” a message from DPS read. “Van Pelt Library is accessible through the Rosengarten entrance, on the ground floor at the east end, facing Levy Park.”
Employees pulled fencing out of the College Hall West Wing renovation zone, and used it to build the barricades around Van Pelt Library. The grass has large patches where tents once stood.
A notice of trespass is attached to the fencing surrounding College Green.
"You are not authorized to use the area of 3400 Woodland Walk, the area encompassing College Green, or any other areas deemed private by the University of Pennsylvania, to erect a tent or other structure, or to otherwise encamp or stay, at this location," the notice reads. "Your activities are in violation of state laws and university policy. If you do not vacate the area immediately, you may be subject to university sanctions as well as arrest and criminal prosecution."
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