HONG KONG—A besieged Hong Kong university was gripped with tension into the early hours of Monday morning, as the police force threatened to use lethal force to arrest anyone who did not surrender.

After a nearly 24-hour standoff on the fringes of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, in which protesters set two bridges on fire and shot an officer using a bow and arrow, lawmakers scrambled to stop riot police officers from charging inside and arresting hundreds of anti-government demonstrators who had occupied the campus for days in a fiery siege.

After some journalists and first-aid volunteers fled the scene, local lawmakers and a U.S. pastor called for the government to intervene to prevent bloodshed on the campus.

The clashes Sunday — intense even by the standards of an increasingly violent protest movement — shattered a fragile calm that had returned to the Chinese territory after a workweek marred by severe transit disruptions, street scuffles and a police shooting.

Schools across Hong Kong were cancelled for Monday, and the city’s political crisis showed no sign of abating ahead of local elections scheduled for Nov. 24.

The Hong Kong protests began in June over legislation, since scrapped, that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China, and have expanded to include a broad range of demands for police accountability and greater democracy.

The pastor, William Devlin, and a half-dozen Hong Kong lawmakers said late Sunday they were calling on the Hong Kong government to prevent any bloodshed. They said they had asked the U.S. Consulate to get the police to allow them inside the campus to ensure protesters’ safety.

Devlin said in a telephone interview that he had been on campus for at least four hours as the clashes unfolded, and had left at 8 p.m. But he was trying to re-enter with the lawmakers at a northwest entrance.

Devlin estimated there were many hundreds of determined activists still inside when he left, perhaps up to 1,000. He said they were spread out across all parts of the campus.

“They were all in good spirits,” he said. “They were not being deterred. They were ready to be arrested. They said, ‘We stand for freedom, dignity, democracy, human rights.’ They said they were staying.”

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