Police enter Columbia University building barricaded by students as protests rock US campuses

NEW YORK: Dozens of helmeted police marched on to Columbia University’s campus in the heart of New York City on Tuesday (Apr 30) and began evicting a building that had been barricaded by pro-Palestinian student protesters.

AFP journalists could see police climbing up to the second story of Hamilton Hall from a laddered truck and disappear inside, as student newspaper the Columbia Spectator said arrests were being made.

Hamilton Hall had been barricaded at dawn by students who vowed they would fight any eviction, as they protested the soaring death toll from Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The action came as university administrators around the United States struggle to contain pro-Palestinian demonstrations on dozens of campuses.

The demonstrations – the most sweeping and prolonged unrest to rock US college campuses since the Vietnam war protests of the 1960s and 70s – have already led to several hundred arrests of students and other activists.

Many of them have vowed to maintain their actions despite suspensions and threats of expulsion.

“We will remain here, drawing from the lessons of our people (in Gaza) that stay put, and hold their ground even under the worst conditions,” a protester wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh headscarf, who declined to give her name, told reporters outside the hall earlier in the day.

As she spoke, protesters were seen using ropes to hoist crates of supplies up to the building’s second floor, apparently signaling the students were hunkering down.

President Joe Biden’s White House had sharply criticised the seizure of Hamilton Hall, with a spokesman saying it was “absolutely the wrong approach”.

“That is not an example of peaceful protest,” the spokesman added.