Columbia students take over Hamilton Hall after suspensions begin for pro-Gaza protests

NEW YORK — Pro-Palestinian protesters forced their way into an academic building at Columbia University early Tuesday, hours after the school suspended students who ignored an order to break up their encampments and leave.

The occupation began shortly after midnight at Hamilton Hall, Columbia’s main administrative building. It prompted the university to restrict access to the campus Tuesday, only allowing students who live in dorms and essential services staff to remain.

While many classes have already ended for the semester, some graduate programs pivoted to remote.

“There is no additional access to the Morningside campus,” a memo from the university reads. “This access restriction will remain in place until circumstances allow otherwise.”

Student protesters said they will stay until Columbia concedes to three demands: Divestment from Israel, financial transparency, and amnesty for all student and faculty disciplinary action related to pro-Palestinian advocacy.

“Resistance is justified in the movement for liberation,” Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of more than 100 groups that runs the encampment, said in a statement.

Videos shows protesters shattering a window with a hammer and creating a barricade with metal chairs outside Hamilton Hall after they entered the building. They chanted during an Instagram livestream: “1, 2, 3, 4, occupation no more. 5, 6, 7, 8, Israel is a terrorist state.”

Protest posters were unfurled from two balconies. One said “STUDENT INTIFADA,” photos show. Intifada in Arabic means uprising, which has been used by Palestinians for decades.

Another banner read “Hind’s Hall,” referring to Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl killed in Gaza during an Israeli military operation in January.

Protesters inside the hall — the center of campus protests in the 1960s — were using tables, chairs and zip-ties to prevent anyone from getting in, according to student newspaper the Columbia Spectator.

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