Hundreds of New York City police wearing riot gear arrested pro-Palestinian demonstrators, who are demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and "an end to Israel's war of annihilation," stormed into Columbia University on Tuesday, about 20 hours after demonstrators occupied the Hamilton Building in campus, escalating a crisis that has consumed the university and ignited student activism on dozens of campuses across the country.

This action came approximately two weeks after police arrested more than 100 demonstrators who set up tents on the university's campus in the "Upper Manhattan" area. The police action angered many faculty and students, who set up new tents almost immediately. Since then, the camp has become larger than the original camp.

A group of police officers who stormed and occupied Columbia University remain outside the entrance to Hamilton Hall, as protesters continue to chant “Free, free Palestine” in the rain from the other side of the building.

Carlos Nieves, assistant commissioner of information for the police department, told a group of reporters outside Columbia University's campus that "tear gas was not used on campus." He added for emphasis: “The NYPD does not use tear gas.”

Moments after police entered Columbia's campus, the university said in a typical statement: "We regret that the protesters chose to escalate the situation through their actions," adding, "After the university learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and besieged, we were left with no choice." 

The university added: “We will not risk the safety of our community or the possibility of further escalation,” indicating the pride of the university administration in escalating the battle against the students who are demanding the right to demonstrate, the withdrawal of investments from Israel, and an amnesty for the students who were expelled and those who were arrested.

NBC quoted the police as saying that about 100 people were arrested and the Hamilton Hall, which the protesters called “Hind Hall” in honor of a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was martyred in the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, was evacuated.

The leadership team, which included the Board of Trustees, met throughout the night and into the early morning and consulted with security experts and law enforcement to determine “the best plan to protect our students and all of Columbia,” the university said in its statement.

“We made the decision, early in the morning, that this was a law enforcement matter, and that the NYPD was best positioned to determine and implement the appropriate response,” the university said.

Dozens of Emergency Service Unit officers entered the Morningside Heights campus at 9:13 p.m., but were prevented from entering the barricaded building through the front door.

Many protesters seemed unfazed as they stood in the doorway with only a glass pane between them and the officers — while their comrades in the streets chanted “Pigs!”

That's when the NYPD ordered the Mobile Adjustable Ramp System (MARS) moved to the second-floor window, sending a stream of cops wearing riot gear and carrying handcuffs.

Within just 20 minutes, police made multiple arrests. The protesters — many of whom covered their faces with surgical masks or keffiyehs — were escorted from Hamilton Hall and loaded onto three NYPD buses.

Many demonstrators continued to shout for "Save Gaza" and "Free Palestine."

Officers were also stationed in front of off-campus residences and were greeted with hostile shouts such as "NYPD, Ku Klux Klan; occupation forces! They're all the same!"

Columbia University issued a statement just 15 minutes after police entered the campus, saying it "regrets" having to rely on police to clean up the chaos.

Dozens of student demonstrators surrounded Hamilton Hall with their arms tied while police began to deploy outside the building and clear the area. People inside the building waved Palestinian flags from the windows.

The latest arrests marked an escalation of unrest on campus, which has inspired similar demonstrations across the country. The scene drew comparisons to 1968, when racial justice and anti-war student protesters occupied the same building for more than a week before New York police removed it.

“We believe they are now actively co-opting what should be a peaceful assembly,” Mayor Eric Adams (a former cop) said during a press conference with top NYPD officers on Tuesday night. “This is to serve their own agenda. “They are not here to promote peace or unity or allow the peaceful display of one voice, but they are here to create discord and division.”

Protesters stood outside a barricade at West 113th Street and Broadway, chanting, “Free, free Palestine!” And "Withdraw, we will not stop and we will not calm down!" “Resistance is justified when people are colonized!” 

There were some tense moments when officers wearing riot gear entered the barricaded area amid jeers and shouts from demonstrators. Shortly after 9 p.m., demonstrators chanted “Shame!” When two NYPD trucks passed.

The protests began after a hearing in the US Congress on April 17, in which the president of Columbia University (in New York City), Nemat (Minouche) Shafik, an American of Egyptian descent, was questioned about the wave of “anti-Semitism” on the university campus due to small protests. It was dispersed by students supporting the Palestinian cause, as the Republican members of the Congressional Committee tried to label every protest against Israel and the Israeli war on Gaza since October 7 last year as anti-Semitic.

Following the session in Congress, which was supposed to take place last December, but was postponed for personal reasons by the university president, Shafiq, Shafiq returned to the university and called the New York City police to suppress the protesting students, where 108 students were arrested from the middle of the university campus, which sparked... Protests from a broader sector of university students who camped at the university and rejected instructions to disperse the protests.

Then, Columbia's embattled president came under renewed pressure when the campus oversight committee sharply rebuked her administration for suppressing a pro-Palestinian demonstration on the university's New York campus, and she (President Nemat Minouche Shafik) also faced disapproval from many students, faculty, and outside observers for calling in the police. New York to dismantle a camp set up by students protesting the Israeli war on Gaza on campus.

After a two-hour meeting last Friday, (4/26) the Columbia University Senate (made up of professors and students) approved a resolution stating that the Shafik administration undermined academic freedom and ignored the privacy and due process rights of students and faculty by calling the police and shutting down the peaceful protest. .

Some analysts and commentators liken today to yesterday. In 1968, Columbia University became one of the hotbeds of protests against the American war in Vietnam, which were stimulated by the university’s relationship with the military-industrial complex. The students occupied five buildings and held university dean Henry Coleman hostage for 36 hours (which has not happened yet). The police were called, hundreds of students were arrested, and injuries occurred amidst an atmosphere of strike, followed by the resignation of the President of Columbia University, Grayson Kirk. Anti-war protests reached their peak outside the halls of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and these protests were later considered a blow to the Democratic Party, and one of the main reasons for the election of Richard Nixon in the 1968 elections.

Perhaps it is a coincidence that the 2024 Democratic Party convention will be held in August in Chicago, amid a similar division in Democratic circles due to the Israeli war on Gaza.

In parallel and at the same time, the anti-war movement in Vietnam spread very quickly throughout the world. West Berlin witnessed massive demonstrations, and Vietnam was one of the sparks that ignited weeks of street clashes during the May 1968 uprising of workers and students in Paris and throughout France. To this day, traces of bullet holes can still be seen in the Marais district of the French capital. The May 68 protest movement was politically short-lived. The rebellion in Paris lasted only ten weeks, although at one point the Elysee felt very close to losing control, prompting its then-president de Gaulle to flee the country.

Since the start of the first student protests in American universities with the start of the Israeli war of genocide against Gaza following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, the demonstrators saw themselves as an extension of the widespread demonstrations that began against the Vietnam War in 1968. In a direct example of the continuation of an old anti-war approach in American universities, a pro-Palestinian student group at Columbia University posted on Instagram an old photo of students at the same university in 1968 holding a banner reading “Liberated Zone” during their protests against the Vietnam War.

As was the case in the past, university youth involved in anti-war efforts believe that the risk of being held accountable and punished for violating university discipline rules pales in comparison to the cause for which they are fighting.

Just as hundreds of students were arrested during the past weeks in many American universities after they set up camps on campus and demanded that their institutions call for a ceasefire in Gaza and withdraw university endowment funds from companies linked to Israel, these universities witnessed broader waves of arrests 56 years ago. And more cruelly, after the authorities summoned the US National Guard, local police, and state police, and in 1970 it came to the killing of four students and the wounding of nine at an Ohio university after the National Guard opened fire on a crowd of students who were protesting against the Vietnam War.

In addition to the obvious similarities in the confrontations with law enforcement, the demands of student activists, and their public perceptions of the issues they are fighting for, the issue of freedom of expression is at the forefront of the conflict, as the same considerations remain regarding how to balance the need to maintain a broad space for freedom of expression, At the same time, zero tolerance for violence or disorder continues to exist. This was evident in some universities recently summoning law enforcement forces on the grounds that some students had violated freedom of expression and raised allegations that Jewish students feared, which led them not to attend to pursue their academic activities, or that some pro-Palestinian students’ slogans were considered anti-Semitic, amid a heated atmosphere fueled in part by the efforts of the Council. US Representatives held hearing committees for Columbia University leaders, following previous pressure that forced the presidents of Harvard and Pennsylvania universities to resign because they were accused of negligence in confronting students.

At a time when the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s was a critical issue with wide-ranging implications for all students, and deeply resonated with principles of equality and justice even on white-dominated campuses, today's students have benefited from the Black Lives Matter protests, (according to the author Charles Blow in the New York Times, despite the enormous potential possessed by the many Israeli lobby organizations, a movement in support of the Palestinian issue has been launched, the vitality of which will be difficult to extinguish, especially since one of the similarities between yesterday and today is that the American right uses the same rules of the game that it used in 1968, which is Mocking the demonstrators as spoiled and naive college students is out of step with “real Americans,” while right-wing conservatives ignore the essence of the protests, which they view as part of the culture wars, especially in light of social media reporting Israel’s war crimes on the Gaza Strip moment by moment.

The demonstrators refuse to end their protest before three demands are met: divestment in Israel, transparency regarding the university's financial affairs, and amnesty for students and faculty who were subject to disciplinary measures due to their role in the protests.