Pro-Palestinian protesters took over a university building in the US – the latest escalation of demonstrations at college campuses against the Israel-Hamas war.

The demonstrators barricaded the entrance of the building at Columbia University in New York on Tuesday and unfurled a Palestinian flag out of a window.

Video footage showed protesters on the Manhattan campus locking arms in front of Hamilton Hall and carrying furniture and metal barricades to the building.

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A group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) said Hamilton Hall was now called “Hind’s Hall” in honour of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl killed in a strike on Gaza in February.

The student radio station broadcast a play-by-play of the hall’s takeover, which occurred nearly 12 hours after a deadline for the protesters to leave an encampment of around 120 tents or face suspension.

Demonstrators said they planned to remain at the hall until the university conceded to the CUAD’s three demands: divestment, financial transparency and amnesty.

One protester, a 22-year-old student who did not wish to be named, told Sky News she has relatives in Gaza and she will “not stop attending protests until the war ends and (Columbia University) agrees to divest”.

“We have Jewish, Christian, Muslim people of faith and people of no faith standing with me, holding my hands in solidarity with the injustice that is happening in Palestine,” she said.

“If we have to be here all day we will, we need peace and we need justice. They are threatening to suspend us but we are standing up for human rights.”

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Dozens of people were arrested on Monday during protests at universities in Texas, Utah, Virginia and New Jersey, while Columbia said hours before the takeover of Hamilton Hall that it had started suspending students.

Police moved to clear an encampment at Yale University in Connecticut on Tuesday morning, but there were no immediate reports of arrests.

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The campus protests began as a response by some students to Israel’s offensive in Gaza after Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel on 7 October.

Three police officers have been shot and killed and another five wounded as they served an arrest warrant in North Carolina.

According to officials, the suspect was also shot dead.

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Pro-Palestinian students in the US have defied an order by university officials to dismantle a tent camp set up to protest Israel’s war in Gaza or face suspension.

College authorities at Columbia University in New York, sent students a letter on Monday demanding they sign a form agreeing to obey university policies until June 2025 or an earlier graduation, if they wish to finish the term in good standing.

If they failed to comply by 2pm, local time, the letter said, they would be suspended, pending further investigation and would not finish the term, the note said.

But those at the camp, now in its second week, voted nearly unanimously to stay put, NBC, Sky’s US partner, said.

Around 2.45pm, protesters were seen marching on the quad and chanting “Disclose! Divest! We will not slow, we will not rest!'”, NBC said.

More than 300 people and at least 120 tents remained.

Noting that exams are starting and graduation is coming up, the letter said: “We urge you to remove the encampment so that we do not deprive your fellow students, their families and friends of this momentous occasion.”

Mahmoud Khalil, the protesters’ lead negotiator, said university representatives began passing out the notices at the encampment shortly after 10am on Monday.

Demonstrators set up tents in the centre of the Columbia campus in one of the early pro-Palestinian protests over the Israel-Hamas war and its mounting death toll, but dissent quickly spread to other colleges, sparking clashes with police and arrests.

More than 900 people have been arrested across the US since police in New York removed a pro-Palestinian protest encampment at Columbia, arresting more than 100 demonstrators as they did so, on 18 April.

Clashes have continued, with about 275 people arrested on Saturday at various campuses including Indiana University at Bloomington, Arizona State University and Washington University in St Louis.

On Sunday night and Monday, people at an encampment near George Washington University in the US capital, protested, breaching and dismantling barriers.

Protesters at Yale University set up a new encampment with dozens of tents on Sunday afternoon, nearly a week after police arrested nearly 50 demonstrators and cleared a similar camp.

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More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed during the Israel-Hamas war, according to local health officials, who say about two-thirds of the dead are women and children.

Israel declared war on Hamas and unleashed an air and ground offensive in Gaza in response to the attack on southern Israel on 7 October.

Hamas killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took another 250 hostages in its assault.