Police buses filled with detained demonstrators were seen in video footage, leaving Columbia's campus with police operations ongoing.

The building was cleared of demonstrators about two hours after the operation began, and over 100 people were taken into custody, according to multiple reports.

Protesters entered Hamilton Hall, which they have renamed "Hind's Hall" in memory of 6-year-old Palestinian Hind Rajab, who was brutally killed in Gaza early Tuesday morning, and maintained they would not leave the building unless their demands are accepted. 

They and another group that has been staging an encampment on a Columbia lawn are seeking to have Columbia divest from Israeli firms and condemn Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip. Columbia President Minouche Shafik has maintained that the school will not divest.

Columbia's protests began in April and have served as a flashpoint for the wider anti-war movement after Shafik asked the NYPD to deploy to the school's campus on April 18, when over 100 people were taken into custody in an attempt to clear an encampment.

Demonstrators quickly adapted, however, and opened a new sit-in on another university lawn.

Bystander video footage from inside the campus depicted widespread chaos, however, with protesters being shoved and yelled at by law enforcement, and the protestors were seen dragged across the ground by police officers screaming in pain, according to footage posted online by the Columbia chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.

New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that if any student is injured during the police activity, responsibility would fall on New York City Mayor Eric Adams and university leaders.

The faculty board said, "The NYPD presence in our neighbourhood endangers our entire community. Armed police entering our campus place students and everyone else on campus at risk. That is why university statutes require consultation with faculty—statutes that appear to have been ignored since April 17 and again tonight."