Dozens of pro-Hamas students seize control of historic Barnard College academic building

Several dozen keffiyeh-clad anti-Israel protesters took over a building on the Barnard College campus early Wednesday evening to protest the expulsions of two students who stormed a Columbia University class in January and threw around flyers loaded with hateful rhetoric.Videos circulating online, posted by Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine on X, show the masked students lining a hallway in Milbank Hall, the oldest building on campus, beating drums and loudly chanting through megaphones.One of the X posts made by the group — which proclaims “long live the student intifada” in its bio — includes a list of demands, among them a reversal of the expulsions, amnesty for students punished during last year’s anti-Israel campus protests and a public meeting with Dean Leslie Grinage and Barnard President Laura Rosenbury.The group’s demands also include “abolition of the corrupt Barnard disciplinary process and complete transparency for current, past, and future disciplinary proceedings.”The pro-Hamas student group claimed in a follow-up post that Barnard public safety has “harassed and shoved” several students, and knocked at least one to the ground.“Who are they really protecting?” the manic social media post read in all-caps.Protestors graffitied political messages — such as, “Free Palestine,” “Barnard expels students,” and “F–k Barnard” — on the walls of Milbank Hall and vowed to continue their sit-in until administrators entered into “good-faith and substantive negotiations,” the Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine posted on X Wednesday night.

The two expelled students — who haven’t been publicly identified — barged their way into a “History of Modern Israel” class at Columbia University in order to distribute anti-Jewish literature, including a flyer depicting a boot stomping on a Star of David and another showing an Israeli flag on fire.The caught-on-camera saga erupted on Jan.21, the first day o...