A facilities worker at Columbia University claims to have been temporarily held hostage by anti-Israel protesters after a mob of anarchists stormed an academic building on the campus and barricaded its doors.
The insurrection began at approximately 12:30 a.m., when anti-Israel protesters who had been staying on the academic lawn of Columbia's Manhattan campus, where about 120 tents remain, stormed Hamilton Hall, an academic building used by the dean. The mob shattered windows, barricaded doors using tables and chairs, and obscured the windows of the facility.
The major escalation came hours after Columbia University administrators began suspending students who failed to leave their encampment.
"They held me hostage," a facilities worker who was in the building when the insurrection began said after he was allowed to leave, according to the student newspaper Columbia Spectator.
The worker exited the building at around 12:40 a.m., per the publication.
Early Tuesday morning, a mob of hundreds of anti-Israel protesters gained access shortly before 1 a.m., and they then began "moving metal gates to barricade the doors, blocking entrances with wooden tables and chairs, and zip-tying doors shut," Columbia Spectator reported.
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Outside the Columbia University facility, the anti-Israel rebels, many of whom wore masks, locked arms in front of Hamilton Hall to form a human barricade.
The group also placed a banner over the facility, renaming it "Hind’s Hall," after Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old who died during Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
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The students are demanding three things from the university: divest their financial support of Israel, become more transparent with what groups the university supports, and provide blanket amnesty to students who have taken part in the disruptive, weeks-long demonstration.
The seizure of the academic building comes after the university gave a deadline of 2 p.m. Monday for students to leave their encampment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
