After police crackdown, what’s next for Columbia’s Gaza protesters?

The NYPD arrested around 300 college protesters from Columbia and CUNY after Hamilton Hall was occupied and renamed “Hind Hall”.

On Tuesday night, hundreds of New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers with riot shields and zip ties entered the Columbia University campus and arrested more than 280 protesters who had occupied Hamilton Hall, a key academic and administrative building, a day earlier. The police separately also arrested student protesters at City College of New York (CUNY).

The police crackdown marked the latest escalation in tensions between the authorities and pro-Palestine college protesters at demonstrations that have exploded across university campuses in the United States, and have also spread to other parts of the world.

The protesters are demanding an end to Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 people since October 7, and are calling on their universities to sever ties with companies and institutions that have links to Israel. At the heart of these student protests is Columbia, where students set up a days-long encampment before occupying Hamilton Hall, and setting off the pattern of global protests.

On April 17, students at New York’s Columbia University set up the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on campus to protest against Columbia’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza. The students want Columbia to divest – withdraw their investments – from companies that do business with Israel and cut academic ties with Israeli universities.

On Monday, the president of Columbia University, Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, released a statement asserting that Columbia would “not divest from Israel”. Columbia gave students a deadline of 2pm (18:00 GMT) on Monday to dismantle the encampments of about 120 tents.