NYPD arrests dozens of Columbia students for pro-Palestine protest

Dozens of Columbia student activists have been arrested for staging a protest inside the university’s Butler Library, which they renamed after Basel al-Araj, a Palestinian author and activist killed by Israeli forces in 2017 and remembered as “the Educated Martyr”.

Campus security held the students in the library after they refused to show their student identification for fear of disciplinary action from the university, which has suspended and expelled students for taking part in pro-Palestine protests since the outbreak of the Gaza war.

Security guards blocked the exit for over three hours. After students’ demands to be released were ignored, scuffles ensued between guards and students, resulting in at least one student being carried out in a stretcher.

The standoff lasted until police entered the building and arrested an estimated 75 protesters, according to Columbia’s student-run newspaper the Daily Spectator.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio later tweeted that the government was “reviewing the visa status” of those involved, adding that “pro-Hamas thugs” were “no longer welcome” in the country.

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