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Pro-Palestinian protesters occupy Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall
Protesters broke into the building with hammers and barricaded themselves inside.
April 30, 2024, published at 7:00 PM ET
Tens pro-Palestinian demonstrators broke into an academic building at Columbia University on Tuesday morning, RadarOnline.com has learned.
Shocking video footage captured escalating tensions on campus when a protester used a hammer to smash glass-paneled doors in Hamilton Hall. The group then occupied the building while forming several barricades outside.
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The protests in Columbia turned destructive shortly after midnight on Tuesday.
According to the student-run newspaper Columbia Daily Spectatorthe group stormed the building around 12:30 p.m. Once inside, the protesters hung a banner outside the academic building that read “Hind’s Hall,” referring to a six-year-old Palestinian child who was killed in Gaza on January 29.
The protesters also carried signs reading “intifada,” which in Arabic refers to an uprising or revolt against oppression. Other students hung Palestinian flags and other banners from the building’s windows.
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Protesters used “tables and chairs from classrooms to lock the doors from the inside” and began “covering security cameras with black trash bags and tape.”
The group overtook the building within five minutes, leaving a facility worker trapped inside. Shortly before 1 a.m. the man was allowed to leave. As he left the building, he shouted at the crowd gathered outside, “They were holding me hostage.”
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Shocking video shows protesters breaking into the academic building.
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Minutes later, several other individuals not involved in the occupation were allowed to leave Hamilton Hall, including at least three facilities employees. Two students tried to stop the protesters from barricading the main entrance, shouting, “You have no right to tear down our university!”
The students eventually left the front of Hamilton Hall and a barricade consisting of metal fencing and trash cans was quickly erected.
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Protesters barricaded themselves in Hamilton Hall.
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While NYPD officers arrived on campus within minutes of protesters entering the building, they noted hours later that they would not enter unless they “hear that someone has been injured.”
Meanwhile, more protesters arrived outside the building, some forming a human barricade. Others marched in a picket line, chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Palestine will live forever.”
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A press release from the Apartheid divestment from Columbia University X-account labeled the protesters occupying the building as an “autonomous group.”
“Protesters have expressed their intention to remain in Hind’s Hall until Columbia gives in to CUAD’s three demands: divestment, financial transparency and amnesty,” the press release said.
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A “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” has been built on campus as protesters call on the university to divest from Israel.
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The dramatic scene was the latest development in the protests taking place in Columbia, where students set up a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” as they called on the university to divest from Israel. Dozens of arrests have also been made suspensions.
Ongoing student-led protests against the war in Gaza are taking place across the country at institutions of higher education, including the University of Texas at Austin, UCLA, Emory University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
