A facility official at Columbia University claimed he was briefly taken hostage by anti-Israel protesters after an anarchist mob stormed an academic facility on campus and barricaded the doors.
The riot began around 12:30 a.m. when anti-Israel demonstrators who were staying on the academic lawn of Columbia University’s Manhattan campus, where about 120 tents remained, attacked Hamilton Hall, an academic building used by the dean. It started with what I did. The rioters smashed the facility’s windows and used tables and chairs to barricade the doors and obscure the facility’s windows.
This major escalation came hours after Columbia University administrators began suspending students who did not leave the camp.
“They took me hostage,” a facility employee who was in the building when the riot began said after being allowed to leave, according to the Columbia Spectator, a student newspaper.
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A group of Columbia University students formed a person-to-person bond outside the iconic Hamilton Hall building as unrest on campus continued. (Selcuk Achar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The employee left the building around 12:40 a.m., the paper said.
Members of an anti-Israel mob invaded Hamilton Hall early Tuesday morning. (Alex Kent/Getty Images)
On April 30, 2024, in New York City, students supporting Palestinians in Gaza barricaded themselves in Hamilton Hall, an academic building that has been occupied by student protests in the past. (Alex Kent/Getty Images)
Early Tuesday morning, a mob of several hundred anti-Israel demonstrators broke in shortly before 1 a.m., “moving the metal gates, barricading the doors, blocking the entrance with wooden tables and chairs,” police said. “They started closing the door with zip ties,” the Columbian newspaper said. The audience reported.
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Outside Columbia University facilities, anti-Israel rebels, many wearing masks, linked arms to form a human barricade in front of Hamilton Hall.
A maintenance worker who claimed to have been held hostage was confronted by protesters inside Hamilton Hall in New York City on Tuesday, April 30, 2024. (Alex Kent/Getty Images)
Maintenance workers were eventually allowed to leave Hamilton Hall. (Alex Kent/Getty Images)
The group also hung a banner over the facility, renaming it “Hind Hall” after six-year-old Hind Rajab, who died during Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
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Students are demanding three things from universities. It includes relinquishing funding to Israel, making universities more transparent about what groups they support, and granting full amnesty to students who participated in weeks of destructive demonstrations. It is.
On April 30, 2024, anti-Israel protesters used furniture to barricade the doors of Hamilton Hall. (Alex Kent/Getty Images)
On April 30, 2024, protesters in New York City barricaded themselves inside Hamilton Hall, an academic building that has been occupied during past student protests. (Alex Kent/Getty Images)
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The seizure of the academic building came after the university gave students a deadline of 2pm on Monday to leave the encampment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
