By JONATHAN ALLEN Reuters
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NEW YORK — Dozens of protesters stood on tables, beat drums and unfurled pro-Palestinian banners in the reading room of Columbia University’s main library on Wednesday in one of the biggest campus demonstrations since last year’s student protest movement against Israel’s war in Gaza.

Videos and photographs on social media showed protesters, most wearing masks, with banners saying “Strike For Gaza” and “Liberated Zone” beneath the Lawrence A. Wein Reading Room’s chandeliers in the Butler Library.

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U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed the protests last year were antisemitic and showed a failure to protect Jewish students. Columbia’s board of trustees has been negotiating with the administration, which in March 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 fending off accusations from civil rights groups that it is letting the government erode academia’s free-speech protections.

On Wednesday, Columbia said in a statement its public safety staff asked students to show identification and ordered protesters to disperse. Those who did not comply would be disciplined for breaking school rules and face “possible arrest,” the school said.

A Reuters witness saw campus security escort people out a door and hand them over to police officers outside. It was not immediately clear if they were being taken into custody.

A New York Police Department spokesperson said the police department was monitoring the situation and its personnel were “within the vicinity of the university.”

At one point, more people were seen trying to enter the library, according to the Reuters witness. Public safety staff locked a door and shoving and pushing ensued.

One student organization representing the protesters said on social media that school security had assaulted demonstrators, and that the activists had refused to show their IDs to officials “under militarized arrest.”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in an interview with the local NBC News affiliate channel that Columbia officials had asked for help and that the New York Police Department was sending officers to the campus.