Dozens of protesters stormed a US university building, barricading the entrances and flying a Palestinian flag out a window in the latest escalation of college campus demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war.
Video footage showed protesters at Columbia University in New York locking arms in front of Hamilton Hall in the early hours of Tuesday.
Protesters were carrying furniture and metal barricades to the building, one of several that was occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protest on the campus.
Posts on an Instagram page for protest organisers urged people to protect the encampment and join them at Hamilton Hall shortly after midnight.
“An autonomous group reclaimed Hind’s Hall, previously known as “Hamilton Hall,” in honor Hind Rajab, a martyr murdered at the hands of the genocidal Israeli state at the age of six years old,” CU Apartheid Divest posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
In the X post, protestors said they planned to remain at the hall until the university conceded to the CUAD’s three demands: divestment, financial transparency and amnesty.
Already an encampment of 120 tents surrounded the university – the students inside them had been told to leave by 2pm on Monday or face suspension.
Representatives for the university did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment early Tuesday.
