The New York Police Department arrested a keffiyeh-clad Columbia University alumna who set up a tent outside a main campus gate on Monday afternoon. She was engaged in an anti-Israel protest alongside roughly two dozen masked agitators, including about 10 who chained themselves to the entryway.
UPDATE: The NYPD has arrested an anti-Israel protester at Columbia for reportedly setting up a tent https://t.co/gbRSqsKuwh pic.twitter.com/ahVlGpuC8y
— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) April 21, 2025
The group was demanding the release of pro-Hamas Columbia activists Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. The student and alumni groups behind the protest also called on the Ivy League university to open its campus gates, disclose its financial investments, divest “from companies profiting from Israel’s genocide and apartheid of the Palestinian people,” and establish itself as a “sanctuary campus.”
HAPPENING NOW: Several Columbia students and alumni have chained themselves to a university gate pic.twitter.com/PGpvNV2uMm
— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) April 21, 2025
Anti-Israel protesters at Columbia demand school become a “sanctuary campus” and divest from Jewish state https://t.co/UAwtiDYyVI pic.twitter.com/VHFpA3EEmr
— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) April 21, 2025
The activists held signs that read “Free Our Prisoners, Free Them All,” “ICE off campus,” and displayed a banner with their demands. They also tied cards with the names of Palestinians killed during Israel’s war on Hamas to the gate, chanted “There is only solution, intifada revolution,” “We want divestment, now, now, now,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab,” and loudly banged on drums.
Chants of “Intifada revolution” at the protest outside of @Columbia’s gates. Not really clear what “intifada” has to do with opening the gates, but maaaaybe these protests aren’t as “principled” and “pro-peace” as people claim they are… 🙄 pic.twitter.com/tCf36AmkAj
— Columbia Jewish & Israeli Students ✡️🇮🇱 (@CUJewsIsraelis) April 21, 2025
The protest and arrest comes as Columbia struggles to rein in campus anti-Semitism, which has caused leadership instability and cost the university $430 million in federal funding. The university’s new acting president, Claire Shipman, promised to enforce policy changes, including restrictions on masking, protests that disrupt classes, and consistent discipline in an effort to restore that funding.
A Columbia spokeswoman told the Washington Free Beacon that Public Safety asked the protesters for identification, but didn’t say if they complied as university policy requires. Columbia’s Public Safety cut the locks after about an hour, though the protesters remained.
“We are monitoring a disruption involving about 10 individuals on Amsterdam Avenue chained to the campus gates. Public Safety has cut the locks, and individuals have been asked for identification. All chained individuals remained outside the gates, and NYPD is on site monitoring the small demonstration that remains outside the gates,” the spokeswoman said.
“We will follow all applicable policies and procedures for addressing potential violations. This small disruption has not impeded the ability of our students to attend classes as normal; all scheduled campus activities have proceeded as planned,” she continued. “Our focus is on ensuring a safe campus for our community and preserving our core mission to teach, create, and advance knowledge.”
A Columbia senior, Eden Yadegar, however, said the protest—which took place near several academic buildings—disrupted most of her class on the seventh floor of Hamilton Hall. The protest began at noon and was still ongoing as of 6 p.m.
“The Palestine Solidarity Coalition protestors’ ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab’ chants and calls for divestment from the Jewish state disrupted almost the entirety of my 75-minute class,” Yadegar, who previously led the university’s Students Supporting Israel group, said. “Their right to protest does not infringe on the rights of others to learn, work, and study—which is the exact mission of the university that Columbia claims to want to re-center. But because Columbia has allowed many of the organizers of these spectacles to continue doing so without holding them accountable, it’s no wonder such disruptions have become commonplace.”
Protesters in attendance Monday included Barnard College student and anti-Israel activist Maryam Iqbal, who was arrested during last spring’s illegal encampments at Columbia, and Layla Saliba, a social work graduate student and organizer with Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD)—one of the most notorious anti-Semitic campus groups. In fighting her suspension for participating in the terror-tied “Palestinian Resistance 101,” event, Saliba sought the counsel of Stanley Cohen, an attorney who had been acquainted with former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
This is the second protest this semester in which Columbia students attached themselves to a campus gate. On April 2, four students used chains and padlocks to secure themselves to the St. Paul’s Chapel Gate while demanding the names of the trustees who “collaborated” with the Trump administration that resulted in Khalil’s arrest. The protesters chanted “globalize the intifada” as a crowd of prospective students passed by and held signs that read “Pigs aren’t kosher” and “Israel bombs, Columbia pays.” Later in the evening, a second group chained themselves to a nearby campus fence.
Khalil has helped lead CUAD, which facilitated last spring’s illegal campus encampments, has publicly endorsed Hamas’s “armed resistance,” and routinely engages in anarchism. The group also encourages its members to become involved with a designated terror financier and has hosted speakers on campus who have endorsed terrorism against Jews. A federal judge ruled on April 11 that Khalil—who has been in ICE custody since March 9 after the Trump administration revoked his visa and green card—can be deported.
Mahdawi, a Columbia student who was expected to enroll in a university graduate program in the fall, also had his green card revoked by the Trump administration and was taken into custody last Monday. The campus radical has repeatedly expressed support for Hamas, saying he empathizes with the terrorist group and argued that it’s “a product of the Israeli occupation.”