New York City police enter Columbia campus as Gaza protest escalates
Al Jazeera
Officers seen heading towards Hamilton Hall, which students began occupying on Tuesday morning.
Large numbers of New York City police officers have entered the campus of Columbia University in the latest escalation in the Gaza protests that have swept dozens of universities, mostly in the United States.
The New York Police Department received a notice from Columbia authorising officers to take action shortly before they entered the campus late on Tuesday night, a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press news agency.
Live television images showed police entering the campus in upper Manhattan, which has been the focal point of student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, in which more than 34,535 Palestinians have been killed.
After entering the campus, some officers approached Hamilton Hall, the administration building that students began occupying early on Tuesday morning after the management said it had begun suspending students who had refused to meet a deadline to disperse on Monday.
They renamed the building “Hind’s Hall”, in memory of six-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab who was killed in Gaza in February.
