Pro-Hamas protesters on campus at Columbia University seized the historic Hamilton Hall on campus and are refusing to leave until all of their demands are met.
Earlier on Monday, school officials began suspending pro-Palestinian student activists who refused to dismantle a protest camp after the Ivy League school declared a stalemate in talks seeking to end the polarizing demonstration.
University President Nemat Minouche Shafik said in a statement that days of negotiations between student organizers and academic leaders failed to persuade demonstrators to remove the dozens of tents set to express opposition to the war in Gaza.
Around 12:30am local time, Hamas supporters began breaching Hamilton Hall, which was the site of a historic protest against racial injustice in the US in the 1960s.
'We will not leave until Columbia meets every one of our demands,' one Hamas screamed from a balcony in the building. The group has demanded that the university divest from Israel.
According to the Columbia Spectator, the student newspaper, Hamas stooges who made it inside the building threw their belongings aside before beginning their immediate efforts to barricade themselves inside.
Images from the mass demonstration show sleeping bags, coats, rucksacks and blankets strewn across the ground and piled up in front of doors.
The students stormed the building located along the South Lawn, which has been the scene of the university's anti-Israel encampment for over a week.
They quickly climbed the stairs, dragging down tables and chairs from classrooms which they then used to barricade the doors from the inside.
The building was locked down in less than five minutes, according to the student publication, and protesters allowed no one to enter.
Protesters blocked security cameras inside the building with black trash bags and tape, and according to a source from within the building, at least three facility workers remained inside until 1am.
'Several individuals, including the Facilities workers, left the building around 1:10 a.m. after protesters removed the barricades blocking one door, rebolting it after the workers left,' the student paper reported.
One of the workers yelled, 'They held me hostage' as he left the building and smacked somebody's camera, according to the newspaper.
Hundreds of others gathered outside the building and some linked arms to form a human chain blocking the entrance.
'We will not leave until Columbia meets every one of our demands,' the protesters said in a directed chant.
Images from within the Hamilton Hall show how furious protesters stacked two metal tables that had originally been placed outside of Hartley Hall on top of each other and bound them to the doors with rope and zip ties.
At around 1.28am, the protesters draped a Palestinian flag from a window on the third floor of the building before using newspapers to cover windows and doors.
A banner was then dropped from the leftmost side of Hamilton Hall, reading 'Gaza Calls Columbia Falls.'
The crackdown at Columbia, at the center of Gaza-related protests roiling university campuses across the US in recent weeks, occurred as police at the University of Texas at Austin arrested dozens of students whom they doused with pepper spray at a pro-Palestinian rally.
Columbia sent a letter on Monday morning warning that students who did not vacate the encampment by 2pm ET and sign a form promising to abide by university policies would face suspension and become ineligible to complete the semester in good standing.
'We have begun suspending students as part of this next phase of our efforts to ensure safety on our campus,' said Ben Chang, a university spokesperson, at a briefing on Monday evening.
'The encampment has created an unwelcoming environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty and a noisy distraction that interferes with the teaching, learning and preparing for final exams,' Chang said.
Earlier, Shafik said Columbia would not divest from finances in Israel, a key demand of the protesters. Instead, she offered to invest in health and education in Gaza and make Columbia's direct investment holdings more transparent.
Protesters have vowed to keep their encampment on the Manhattan campus until Columbia meets three demands: divestment, transparency in university finances, and amnesty for students and faculty disciplined for their part in the protests.
Hundreds of demonstrators, many wearing traditional Palestinian keffiyeh scarves, marched around the perimeter of the encampment chanting, 'Disclose! Divest! We will not stop, we will not rest.'
Shafik faced an outcry from many students, faculty and outside observers for summoning New York City police two weeks ago to clear the protest camp.
After more than 100 arrests were made, students restored the encampment on a hedge-lined lawn of the university grounds within days of the April 18 police action.
Since then, students at dozens of campuses from California to New England have set up similar encampments to demonstrate their anger over the Israeli operation in Gaza and the perceived complicity of their schools in it.
This is not the first time the historic Hamilton Hall has been targeted and occupied by student protesters.
Starting at noon on April 23, 1968, student militants occupied Hamilton Hall, the main classroom building, and took a dean hostage for 24 hours.
They stormed into the office of the university's president, ransacked files and smoked his cigars - angry about racism and the Vietnam War.
Over the next few days, hundreds of students would seize a total of five campus buildings.
The occupation attracted global attention. Black militant leaders Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown visited the protesters. China's Chairman Mao Zedong sent a telegram.
Then, early on April 30, a thousand police officers swept in and cleared out the rebels.
'In the club swinging, fist fighting, pushing and kneeing that marked the violent subjugation,' The Associated Press reported at the time.
One hundred students and 15 police officers were injured, while cops made 700 arrests.
The recent pro-Palestinian rallies have sparked intense campus debate over where school officials should draw the line between freedom of expression and hate speech.
Students protesting Israel's military offensive in Gaza, including some Jewish peace activists, have said they are being censured as antisemitic merely for criticizing the Israeli government or for expressing support for Palestinian rights.
Other Jewish groups counter that anti-Israel rhetoric frequently delves into or feeds overt forms of anti-Jewish hatred and calls for violence, and thus should not be tolerated.
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