Protesters were arrested as police officers at Hamilton Hall, whose occupation began Tuesday morning by students, and the main campground.
Numerous New York City police officers have entered the Columbia University campus amid the recent escalation of Gaza protests that have engulfed dozens of universities, primarily in the United States.
The New York Police Department received a notice from Columbia shortly before entering campus late Tuesday evening authorizing officers to take action, a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press.
Live television images showed police entering the upper Manhattan campus that has been at the center of student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,535 Palestinians.
After entering campus, some officers approached Hamilton Hall, the administrative building that students began occupying early Tuesday morning after school administrators said they had begun suspending students who refused to do so on Monday to meet a deadline for attending school.
They renamed the building “Hind’s Hall” in memory of the six-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who was killed in Gaza in February.
“We’re clearing it out,” police from a riot squad shouted as they marched toward the barricaded entrance to the building. Dozens more police marched to the protest camp.
Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine said in a post on X that police “were wearing riot gear” and that “several blocks were barricaded.”
A long line of police officers were seen climbing from the roof of a truck into the building through a second-story window. Dozens more officers targeted the nearby protest camp.
Shortly afterwards, officers were seen leading protesters, whose hands were tied behind their backs with plastic cable ties, to police vehicles outside the campus gates.
“Free, free, free Palestine,” chanted demonstrators outside the building. Others shouted “Let the students go.”
‘They are students’
Dozens of protesters barricaded the entrances to Hamilton Hall after occupying Hamilton Hall on Tuesday. A student organizer who spoke to Al Jazeera said the occupation group was separate from the group that set up camp on the campus lawn.
At an evening news conference a few hours before police entered campus, Mayor Eric Adams and city police officials claimed the takeover of Hamilton Hall was instigated by “outside agitators” who had no connection to Columbia and were known to law enforcement for lawlessness to provoke.
Adams suspected that some of the student protesters were not fully aware of the “external actors” in their midst.
“We cannot and will not allow what should have been a peaceful gathering to turn into a senseless spectacle of violence. We can’t wait for this situation to become even more serious. This has to end now,” said the mayor.
One of the protest’s student leaders, Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, denied the claims.
“They are students,” he told Reuters.
The protesters are calling on the university to sell all investments related to Israel, to make its financial ties with the country transparent and to grant all students participating in the rallies an amnesty from any disciplinary action.
Universities across the U.S. are grappling with mounting protests as they prepare for end-of-year graduation ceremonies.
Police also fired tear gas on Tuesday at students setting up a Gaza solidarity camp at the University of Southern Florida in Tampa, according to videos from journalists and witnesses confirmed by Al Jazeera.
The videos also show police officers arresting two people at the protest site.