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.