Dutch riot police clashed on Wednesday with pro-Palestinian protesters as officers moved in to clear barricades at the University of Amsterdam, scene of upheaval since Monday.

Police said around midnight (2200 GMT) that they had arrested 32 people for "violence, destruction, assault and incitement" at the university and on a major thoroughfare in the centre of the Dutch capital.

Local television images showed dozens of police dressed in riot gear exchanging blows with a group of protesters as officers cleared out an area in front of the Binnengasthuis building in Amsterdam's city centre.

Police said the protesters then blocked a major local road called the Rokin where violence also broke out, adding demonstrators "threw ammonia at riot police."

Students are demanding that the University of Amsterdam (UvA) sever ties with Israel over the war in Gaza and are inspired by ongoing demonstrations at US campuses.

A little before midnight, Amsterdam police said on X that the situation was "calm" and most of the protesters had left the area.

They had previously said the clearance "operation has been authorised by the mayor" after the UvA laid charges including disturbing the peace and destruction of property.

Images on the local AT5 channel showed police arresting several demonstrators, numbering a few hundred, roughly pulling one off a front-end loader.

Another protester tried to stop a loader before jumping into a canal to evade arrest.

Images also showed police surrounding and dragging away a small but vocal group of protesters remaining on the campus, while a front-end loader was pushing material used to put up the barricades into a canal.

Protesters waved placards saying "Free Palestine" and shouting "Shame on you" at police.

Police say the protesters were not just students, but also included people "who were not affiliated to the university and were deliberately seeking conflict with the police."

Representatives of the protesters and UvA management were in talks on Wednesday, but protesters told the NOS public broadcaster discussions had led to nothing.

The protests started at the university on Monday. At least 169 people have been arrested.

The Amsterdam city council is due to have an emergency debate about the ongoing demonstrations on Friday.

Protesters were also gathering elsewhere in the Netherlands, including at the Utrecht University campus, reports said.

At least 34 people, including two babies were killed when a contraband fuel depot exploded into flames in southern Benin near the border with Nigeria on Saturday.

According to Beninese Interior Minister Alassane Seidou, “a serious fire occurred in the town of Seme Podji. Another 20 people were seriously wounded in the incident.”

"I can't really give you the cause of the fire, but there is a large gasoline warehouse here and cars, tricycles and motorcycles come from morning to evening,” he added.

Nigeria is a main oil and gas producer where fuel smuggling is very common along its borders, particularly when the government maintains a subsidy to keep fuel prices low.

The majority of the victims were burnt and they could not be not be identified.

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content here', making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).