New York police have launched a crackdown on pro-Palestine students performing a sit-in at Barnard College's library in protest against Columbia University to expel a third student for protesting in support of Palestine.
The police said on Wednesday it was investigating an alleged bomb threat.
Protesters launched their sit-in of Barnard's Milstein Library on Wednesday afternoon, declaring it the Dr Hussam Abu Safiya Liberated Zone. The physician was the director of Gaza's Kamal Adwan Hospital before he was abducted by Israeli forces in December.
"We have renamed Milstein Library in his honor to demand that the international community turn its eyes to Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya's captivity and take action to secure his immediate release while he can still be saved," the Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine group said on X.
"Barnard's escalating repression of student activists reflects a larger crackdown on pro-Palestine speech and advocacy," it added.
Barnard is an affiliate of Columbia University, which said it is "aware of a disruption of Milstein Library."
After the library was evacuated, the New York Police Department said that officers were still on the scene and that arrests had been made. But it was still unclear how many were in custody and what charges they faced.
The group denounced the university's decision to crack down on them.
"Despite their cowardly attempts to shut us down, the Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya Liberated Zone will live on because we will never stop fighting for our prisoners and a liberated Palestine," the group said.
'Discriminatory' expulsion
The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) advocacy group decried the "discriminatory" expulsion of the Barnard student.
"Barnard College's expulsion of a student for protesting the genocide in Palestine is not just an attack on that student's rights — it is part of a larger, systematic effort to silence and punish anyone who dares to speak out against Israeli apartheid and genocide," said Afaf Nashe, the chapter's executive director.
"This politically motivated crackdown reveals the deep hostility university administrators hold toward student voices calling for human rights and justice," he added.
The Justice Department announced last week that Columbia would be among 10 universities that a federal task force would visit to determine if the schools "failed to protect Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination, in potential violation of federal law" during last year's mass demonstrations against Israel's carnage in Gaza.
The task force was established by President Donald Trump in January.
This week, he threatened universities with a cutoff in federal funding if they allow "illegal protests" on their campuses.
