Posted on 09/03/24
| News Source: FOX News
Masked anti-Israel protesters are demonstrating on Tuesday outside of one of the entrances to Columbia University, chanting, "Free Palestine!" and holding signs urging the Ivy League school to "divest from death" as students are trying to get to their first day of classes.
The demonstrations come after a series of protests rocked the New York City-based university this past spring, which generated worldwide media attention and more than 100 arrests. The anti-Israel activity also comes just days after Hamas killed six hostages, including 23-year-old Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Hamas had been holding them captive – and continues to hold nearly 100 others – since they carried out terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
At least one protester was captured on video being arrested on Tuesday while other demonstrators were observed pushing barricades and getting into a scuffle. A second male individual then was taken into custody outside Barnard College, which is across the street from Columbia.
The demonstrations began as peaceful, with protesters walking around in a circle on a sidewalk near one of Columbia’s entrances in Upper Manhattan.
"We refuse to live in a world where the mass murder of Palestinians is normal, acceptable, and profitable. Columbia University is complicit in genocide," the group Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine wrote on X. "Their investments in weapons manufacturers & defense contractors, companies such as Lockheed Martin, are fueling the genocide."
"As we begin our new semester, students in Gaza have no universities to return to. Instead of listening to the student body, Columbia University is doubling down. We will not stop and we will not rest until Columbia divests from apartheid and genocide," it added. "This is just the beginning."