*

At least 40 students seen loaded into police vans, buses

*

Demonstrators occupying main library accused of

trespassing

*

School officials say they requested police presence on

campus

(Adds arrests, latest statements from NYPD, university)

By Ryan Murphy and Jonathan Allen

NEW YORK, May 7 (Reuters) - Police arrested dozens of

Columbia University students who seized part of the school's

main library on Wednesday in one of the biggest pro-Palestinian

demonstrations on campus since last year's wave of protests

against Israel's war in Gaza.

At least 40 to 50 students, their hands cuffed with plastic

zip-ties, were seen being loaded into New York Police Department

vans and buses outside Butler Library as NYPD officers swept

through the six-story building to round up other protesters who

refused to leave.

Police arrived on campus in force at the request of

Columbia officials who said the student demonstrators occupying

the library's second-floor main reading room were engaged in

trespassing.

Videos and photographs on social media showed

protesters, most wearing masks, standing on tables, beating

drums and unfurling banners saying "Strike For Gaza" and

"Liberated Zone" beneath the chandeliers of the Lawrence A. Wein

Reading Room.

U.S. President Donald Trump had lashed out at Columbia over

pro-Palestinian protests on campus last year, saying they were

antisemitic and showed a failure to protect Jewish students.

Student protesters, including some Jewish organizers,

counter that Trump and fellow conservative politicians who are

strongly pro-Israel are unfairly conflating pro-Palestinian

protests and antisemitism.

Columbia's board of trustees has been negotiating with the

Trump administration, which announced in March that it had

canceled hundreds of millions of dollars of grants to the

university for scientific research.

The university has said it has worked to combat antisemitism

and other prejudice on its campus while seeking to fend off

accusations from civil rights groups that it was giving in to

government intrusions on academic freedom.

Columbia University said late on Wednesday that it had

requested NYPD assistance "in securing the building," and that

two of its public safety officials were hurt in the standoff.

SCUFFLE AT FRONT DOOR

An NYPD spokesperson confirmed "multiple arrests" of

protesters who occupied the library but did not provide an exact

number.

"Everyone has the right to peacefully protest. But

violence, vandalism or destruction of property are completely

unacceptable," New York Governor Kathy Hochul said on social

media.

Before police arrived on the scene, university public

safety personnel were seen locking the front doors to the

library, preventing any more students from entering the building

and sparking a brief episode of pushing and shoving outside.

One student appeared to have been injured in the fracas.

Another individual was seen being carried out of the building on

a stretcher.

With further entry to the library barred, a growing

crowd of demonstrators outside the building moved to the streets

just beyond the campus gates.

One student organization representing the protesters said on

social media that school security had assaulted demonstrators

and acknowledged that some activists had refused to show their

IDs to officials.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a collection of

student groups, recirculated long-standing demands on social

media on Wednesday for the university to no longer invest its

$14.8 billion endowment in weapons makers and other companies

that support Israel's military occupation of Palestinian

territories.

On Monday, pro-Palestinian protesters occupied a

University of Washington

building, demanding the school cut ties with Boeing over

its contracts with the Israeli military. The university said 34

protesters were arrested, and charges of trespassing, property

destruction and disorderly conduct would be referred to

prosecutors.

On Wednesday, it said the 21 students who were among

those arrested have been suspended and banned from all of the

school's campuses.

Columbia was at the forefront of a pro-Palestinian and

anti-Israel student protest movement that swept across U.S.

campuses last year over Israel's war in Gaza, which began in

2023.

Trump, a Republican, is also trying to deport some

pro-Palestinian international students at U.S. schools, saying

their presence could harm U.S. foreign policy interests.

The protesters in the library also demanded the release of

Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist and Columbia graduate

student who remains in a Louisiana immigrant jail after he was

among the first to be arrested for possible deportation.