New York police enter Columbia University to disperse pro-Palestinian protesters who occupied a campus building / About 50 people, removed by law enforcement

New York City police entered Columbia University campus Tuesday night to arrest and disperse pro-Palestinian protesters who occupied a campus building nearly 24 hours after occupying a tent camp at the Ivy League school. for almost two weeks, reports Reuters, reports News.ro.

Live television footage showed police in helmets and tactical gear entering the elite campus in upper Manhattan, which has been the focus of student protests that have spread to dozens of US schools in recent days, expressing opposition against Israel’s war in Gaza.

“We’re evacuating him,” police shouted as they marched toward the barricaded entrance to Hamilton Hall, an academic building that protesters stormed and took control of in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

A long line of police officers were seen entering the building through a second floor window, using a vehicle with a ladder to gain access to the upper floor.

Dozens of other officers swarmed the nearby protest camp, while curious students just outside the campus taunted them with shouts of “Shame, shame!”. Officers were soon seen leading handcuffed protesters to police vehicles outside the campus gates.

The police put about 50 people on a bus, each with their hands tied behind their backs, the whole scene being lit by the flashing red and blue lights of the police vehicles. Ambulances and other emergency services vehicles were standing nearby.

“Free Palestine, free, free, free,” chanted the protesters in front of the building. Others shouted “Let the students go.”

Columbia University officials earlier on Tuesday threatened the academic expulsion of the students who occupied Hamilton Hall.

The occupation began overnight, when protesters broke windows, forced their way inside and unfurled a banner reading “Hind’s Hall,” symbolically renaming the building after a 6-year-old Palestinian child killed in Gaza by Israeli forces.

Outside the eight-story neoclassical building — the site of various student occupations on campus since the 1960s — protesters blocked the entrance with tables, linked arms to form a barricade and chanted pro-Palestinian slogans.

At a news conference hours before police entered Columbia, Mayor Eric Adams and city police officials said the Hamilton Hall occupation was instigated by “outside agitators” with no affiliation to Columbia and who they are known to law enforcement because they cause public disorder.

Police said they based their findings in part on the occupation’s escalation tactics, including vandalism, the use of barricades to block entrances and the destruction of surveillance cameras.

Adams suggested that some of the student protesters were not fully aware of the presence of “external actors” in their midst.

“We cannot and will not allow what should be a peaceful gathering to turn into a violent spectacle that serves no purpose. We cannot wait for this situation to become even worse. This must end now,” the mayor said.

One of the student leaders leading the protest, Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student attending Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs on a student visa, disputed claims that foreigners initiated the occupation.

“They are students,” he told Reuters.

A day earlier, the university said it had begun suspending students who defied a deadline to evacuate a protest camp, while school officials said several days of talks with protest leaders, aimed at dismantling the tents, they reached a dead end.

“The disturbances on campus have created a threatening environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty and a noisy distraction that interferes with teaching, learning and preparation for final exams,” the university said in a statement on Tuesday.

The October 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants from Gaza and the subsequent Israeli offensive on the Palestinian enclave sparked the biggest explosion of student activism since the anti-racism protests of 2020.

Many of the demonstrations were met by counter-demonstrators who accused them of fomenting anti-Jewish hatred. The pro-Palestinian side, including Jews who oppose Israeli actions in Gaza, say they are unfairly labeled anti-Semitic for criticizing the Israeli government and expressing support for human rights.

Regarding the protests, university officials struggled to find a balance between freedom of expression and the elimination of hate speech.

The issue gained political attention in the run-up to November’s US presidential election, with Republicans accusing some university administrators of turning a blind eye to anti-Semitic rhetoric and harassment.

White House spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday denounced non-pacifist forms of student protests, calling the occupation of campus buildings “the wrong approach.”

New York Police Department officials stressed before Tuesday night’s action that agents would refrain from entering the campus unless requested by Columbia administrators, as they did on April 18 when NYPD agents removed an earlier camp. More than 100 arrests were then made, which sparked a wave of protests from many students and staff.

Dozens of tents, set up on a grassy area bordered by fences — alongside a smaller lawn planted in the meantime with hundreds of small Israeli flags — were set up again a few days later and remained on campus until Tuesday.