[Source: Reuters]

New York City police officers entered the grounds of Columbia University on Tuesday night in an apparent effort to disperse pro-Palestinian protesters who took over a campus building after a nearly two-week standoff with administrators of the Ivy League school.

Live television images showed police entering the elite campus in upper Manhattan, which has been the focal point of student protests that have spread to dozens of schools across the U.S. expressing opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza.

“We’re clearing it out” police in a riot unit yelled as they marched up to the barricaded entrance to the building. While dozens more police marched to the protest encampment.

“Shame! shame!” jeered many onlooking undergrads still outside on campus.

Columbia University officials earlier on Tuesday threatened academic expulsion of the students who seized Hamilton Hall.

The occupation began overnight when protesters broke windows, stormed inside and unfurled a banner reading “Hind’s Hall,” symbolically renaming the building for a 6-year-old Palestinian child killed in Gaza by the Israeli military.

Outside the eight-story, neo-classical building – the site of various student occupations on the campus dating back to the 1960s – protesters blocked the entrance with tables, linked arms to form a barricade and chanted pro-Palestinian slogans.

At an evening news briefing held a few hours before police entered Columbia, Mayor Eric Adams and city police officials said the Hamilton Hall takeover was instigated by “outside agitators” who lack any affiliation with Columbia and are known to law enforcement for provoking lawlessness.