Columbia protesters occupy Hamilton Hall as university standoff escalates

Demonstrators take over Hamilton Hall in escalation of US antiwar protests.

Students have taken over a building at Columbia University as the standoff escalates between university authorities and protesters against Israel’s war on Gaza.

Protesters moved to occupy Hamilton Hall at the university in New York early on Tuesday after the management said it had begun suspending students who had refused to meet a deadline to disperse on Monday. The move threatens to escalate the standoff, which has seen protests over Israel’s war on Gaza – in which Israel has killed more than 34,400 Palestinians – spread across the country.

Video footage showed protesters on Columbia’s Manhattan campus locking arms in front of Hamilton Hall early on Tuesday and carrying furniture and metal barricades to the building. Dozens of protesters barricaded the entrances and unfurled a Palestinian flag out of a window.  A student organiser who spoke to Al Jazeera said that the group that had occupied Hamilton Hall was separate from the group encamped on the campus lawn.

The protesters who have entered the building now face expulsion.

Hamilton Hall, which protesters said they have now dubbed “Hind Hall”, is one of several buildings that were previously occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protest on the campus.