CHICAGO (CBS) — Police started removing the pro-Palestinian encampment at DePaul University Thursday morning. 

There was a large police presence near the quad in Lincoln Park. Police wearing helmets and face shields were barricading the entrance to the encampment site as construction vehicles entered. 

In a statement to university students and staff, President Robert Manuel said University Public Safety and Chicago Police started disassembling the encampment. 

Manuel said efforts to reach a “shared resolution” with the DePaul Divestment Coalition were unsuccessful.   

“Every person currently in the encampment will be given the opportunity to leave peacefully and without being arrested,” the president said. “I urge all there to leave peacefully and return home.”

The statement also warned of the quad’s closure. 

” Anyone who tries to breach the fence around the quad or any of the green spaces on the Lincoln Park Campus will be trespassed, arrested, and suspended,” President Manuel said in the written statement. “DePaul will continue to investigate every reported complaint of harassment or discrimination that we receive resulting from the encampment or subsequent events.”

The encampment had been in place since April 30, as protesters demanded the school cut ties with Israel. Protesters joined the nationwide college protests in support of Palestinians amid the war in Gaza. 

On May 12, protesters said they had reached a stalemate with university leaders.   

An encampment on the Evanston campus at Northwestern University was voluntarily taken down after an agreement was reached with the university. On May 7, University of Chicago Police intervened to take down an encampment on the Main Quad at that university’s Hyde Park campus, after an impasse was also reached between the university and protesters.