At least 80 people were arrested on Wednesday evening after a group of mask-clad pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched into Columbia University's Butler Library and occupied a reading room, reigniting tensions over the Gaza war on US campuses. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump Administration was reviewing the visa status of the "trespassers and vandals" who took over Columbia University's library.
"Pro-Hamas thugs are no longer welcome in our great nation," he said in a post on X.
The protest at Columbia University began around 3 pm (local time), when masked protesters, many of whom were wearing keffiyehs, entered the second-floor reading room of Butler Library. Videos and photographs shared on social media showed protesters standing on tables, beating drums and unfurling banners saying "Strike For Gaza" and "Liberated Zone" beneath the chandeliers of the Lawrence A Wein Reading Room.
They also hung Palestinian flags and other banners on bookshelves in an ornate reading room. Some protesters also appear to have scrawled "Columbia will burn" across framed pictures.
The university's acting president, Claire Shipman, said the protesters were asked repeatedly to show identification and to leave, but they refused. Following this, the school called the NYPD "to assist in securing the building and the safety of our community," she said in a statement Wednesday evening.
Shipman said two university public safety officers sustained injuries as protesters forced their way into the building.
"These actions are outrageous," she said, adding that the disruption came as students were studying and preparing for final exams.
Later videos showed police officers, in helmets, streaming into Columbia University Wednesday evening to remove the mask-clad pro-Palestinian demonstrators from the school's main library. Other videos show campus security officers barring another group of protesters from entering the library, with both sides shoving to try and force the other group aside.
Police said at least 80 people had been taken into custody, though it wasn't clear how many came from the demonstration inside the library and how many were outside the building.
The Trump administration has cracked down on international students and scholars at several American universities who had participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations or criticised Israel over its military action in Gaza. Columbia University scholar Mahmoud Khalil, for example, is a legal US resident with no criminal record who was detained in March over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
Wednesday's demonstration and the effort to break it up came the same evening that the US Justice Department announced it had brought hate-crime charges against a man who had been repeatedly arrested at pro-Palestinian demonstrations over the past year, including one held near Columbia. An indictment charged Tarek Bazrouk, 20, with assaulting Jewish people at the demonstrations.
Columbia University in March announced sweeping policy changes related to protests following Trump administration threats to revoke its federal funding. Among them are a ban on students wearing masks to conceal their identities and a rule that those protesting on campus must present their identification when asked. The school also said it had hired new public safety officers empowered to make arrests on campus.
