New York City police raided Columbia University late on Tuesday to arrest dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, some of whom had seized an academic building, and to remove a protest encampment the Ivy League school had sought to dismantle for nearly two weeks.

Shortly after police moved in, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik released a letter in which she requested police stay on campus until at least May 17 – two days after graduation – “to maintain order and ensure that encampments are not re-established.”

Within three hours the campus had been cleared of protesters, said a police spokesperson, adding “dozens” of arrests were made, Reuters reported.

At the start of the raid around 9 p.m. ET throngs of helmeted police marched onto the elite campus in upper Manhattan, a focal point of student rallies that have spread to dozens of schools across the U.S. in recent days expressing opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza.

“We’re clearing it out,” the police officers yelled.

Soon after, a long line of officers climbed into Hamilton Hall, an academic building that protesters had broken into and occupied in the early morning hours of Tuesday. Police entered through a second-story window, using a police vehicle equipped with a ladder.

Students standing outside the hall jeered police with shouts of “Shame, shame!”

Police were seen loading dozens of detainees onto a bus, each with their hands bound behind their backs by zip-ties, the entire scene illuminated with flashing red and blue lights of police vehicles.

“Free, free, free Palestine,” chanted protesters outside the building. Others yelled “Let the students go.”

“Columbia will be proud of these students in five years,” said Sweda Polat, one of the student negotiators for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the coalition of student groups that has organized the protests.

She said students did not pose a danger and called on police to back down, speaking as officers shouted at her and others to retreat or leave campus.

Protest Demands

Protesters were seeking three demands from Columbia: divestment from companies supporting Israel’s government, greater transparency in university finances, and amnesty for students and faculty disciplined over the protests, Reuters reported.

Shafik this week said Columbia would not divest from finances in Israel. Instead, she offered to invest in health and education in Gaza and make Columbia’s direct investment holdings more transparent.

In her letter released Tuesday, Shafik said the Hamilton Hall occupiers had vandalized University property and were trespassing, and that encampment protesters were suspended for trespassing. The university earlier warned that students taking part in the Hamilton Hall occupation faced academic expulsion.

The occupation began overnight when protesters broke windows, stormed inside and unfurled a banner reading “Hind’s Hall,” saying they were renaming the building for a 6-year-old Palestinian child killed in Gaza by the Israeli military.

The eight-story, neo-classical building has been the site of various student occupations dating back to the 1960s.

At an evening news briefing held a few hours before police entered Columbia, Mayor Eric Adams and city police officials said the Hamilton Hall takeover was instigated by “outside agitators” who lack any affiliation with Columbia and are known to law enforcement for provoking lawlessness, Reuters reported.

Police said they based their conclusions in part on escalating tactics in the occupation, including vandalism, use of barricades to block entrances and destruction of security cameras.

One of the student leaders of the protest, Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian scholar attending Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, disputed assertions that outsiders led the occupation.

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

Protests across country

The Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants from Gaza, and the ensuing Israeli offensive on the Palestinian enclave, have unleashed the biggest outpouring of U.S. student activism since the anti-racism protests of 2020.

Many of the demonstrations across the country have been met with counter-protesters accusing them of fomenting anti-Jewish hatred. The pro-Palestinian side, including Jews opposed to Israeli actions in Gaza, say they are being unfairly branded as antisemitic for criticizing Israel’s government and expressing support for human rights.

The issue has taken on political overtones in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election in November, with Republicans accusing some university administrators of turning a blind eye to antisemitic rhetoric and harassment.

White House spokesperson John Kirby on Tuesday called the occupation of campus buildings “the wrong approach.”

New York Police Department officials had stressed before Tuesday night’s sweep that officers would refrain from entering the campus unless Columbia administrators invited their presence, as they did on April 18, when NYPD officers removed an earlier encampment. More than 100 arrests were made at that time, stirring an outcry by many students and staff.

Dozens of tents, pitched on a hedge-lined grassy area – beside a smaller lawn since planted with hundreds of small Israeli flags – were put back up days later.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday, the first stop in a broader trip to the Middle East to discuss issues including the governance of Gaza once the war with Israel ends.

The top U.S. diplomat heads to Israel later this week, where he is expected to press Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take the concrete and tangible steps U.S. President Joe Biden demanded this month to improve the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.

In Riyadh, Blinken is expected to meet with senior Saudi leaders and hold a wider meeting with counterparts from five Arab states – Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan – to further the discussions on what governance of the Gaza Strip would look like after the war, according to a senior State Department official.

Blinken is also expected to bring together Arab countries with the European states and discuss how Europe can help the rebuilding effort of the tiny enclave, which has been reduced to a wasteland in the six-month long Israeli bombardment.

A group of European nations, including Norway, plan to recognise Palestinian statehood in conjunction with the presentation of an Arab state-backed peace plan to the United Nations.

“We can see by joining forces we can make this more meaningful. We really want to recognise the Palestinian state, but we know that is something you do once,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told Reuters on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum meeting in Riyadh.

Blinkin’s trip comes as Egypt was expected to host leaders of the Islamist group Hamas to discuss prospects for a ceasefire agreement with Israel.

Hamas fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel retaliated by imposing a total siege on Gaza, then launching an air and ground assault that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, say health authorities in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Conversations over Gaza’s rebuilding and governance have been going on for months with a clear mechanism yet to emerge.

The United States agrees with Israel’s objective that Hamas needs to be eradicated and can no longer play a role in Gaza’s future but Washington does not want Israel to re-occupy the strip.

Instead, it has been looking at a structure that will include a reformed Palestinian Authority with support from Arab states.

Blinken will also discuss with Saudi authorities the efforts for a normalization deal between the kingdom and Israel, a mega deal that includes Washington giving Riyadh agreements on bilateral defense and security commitments as well as nuclear cooperation. – REUTERS

Pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested on a handful of U.S. university campuses on Saturday, as activists vowed to keep up the movement seeking a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas among other demands.

The Indiana University police department in Bloomington said in an emailed statement that 23 protesters were arrested there.

Indiana State Police along with Indiana University police told demonstrators they could not pitch tents and camp on campus. When the tents were not removed, police arrested and transported protesters to the Monroe County Justice Center on charges of criminal trespass and resisting arrest.

“The Indiana University Police Department continues to support peaceful protests on campus that follow university policy,” the police statement read.

Pro-Palestinian protests have spread to college campuses across the U.S., stoked by the mass arrest of over 100 people on Columbia University’s campus last week.

In addition to a ceasefire, protesters are demanding that their schools divest from companies involved with Israel’s military and seeking an end to U.S. military assistance for Israel along with amnesty for students and faculty members who have been disciplined or fired for protesting.

School leaders at several universities have responded in the past week by asking police to clear out camps and arrest those who refuse to leave. While saying they defend free speech rights to protest, the leaders say they will not abide activists infringing on campus policies against hate speech or camping out on university grounds.

Massachusetts State Police said in a statement that they helped clear out a protest encampment at Northeastern University in Boston and that 102 protesters who refused to leave were arrested and will be charged with trespassing.

Northeastern University said in a statement on social media that it decided to call in police as “what began as a student demonstration two days ago was infiltrated by professional organizers with no affiliation to Northeastern.”

At Arizona State University, campus police arrested 69 protesters early Saturday, the school said in a statement.

The university said “a group of people – most of whom were not ASU students, faculty or staff – created an encampment and demonstration” and were arrested and charged with criminal trespass after refusing to disperse. – REUTERS