Jerusalem — Classes at Birzeit University, in the West Bank, were suspended on Tuesday after escalating violence between Palestinian political groups on the campus.

Tension has been rising between supporters of President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine over a West Bank security crackdown in which militants in the Popular Front, a radical Marxist group known as the PFLP, have been arrested by Fatah-dominated security forces.

The university’s administration decided to suspend classes and evacuate students from the campus after a Fatah-affiliated student was assaulted in his dormitory room, apparently by four men from the PFLP. The student, Ahmad Jarrar, was treated at a hospital for severe injuries suffered as he was apparently being tortured. The assailants used charcoal to burn Mr. Jarrar’s face. They also hammered nails into his feet, according to witnesses. Fatah gunmen then arrived at the campus and threatened to kill PFLP supporters.

The university council met in emergency session today to decide how long to keep Birzeit closed. “There are no students in the campus right now,” a Birzeit spokesman, Ghassan Andoni, told The Chronicle. “Classes are suspended for today, and the university council is meeting right now to decide on what measures to take and when to open the university.”

“The meeting is taking place because of the high level of unrest in the student body that happened yesterday,” he said. “It made us feel the campus was not secure enough to continue with normal life.” —Matthew Kalman