Dramatic before-and-after photos show Columbia University’s anti-Israel tent city finally gone after NYPD raid
Dramatic photos show the massive tent city set up by anti-Israel protesters on Columbia University’s iconic lawn completely cleared Wednesday after police stormed the campus and arrested members of a pro-terror mob.
Not a single tent was left standing on the Manhattan Ivy League school’s West Lawn next to Butler Library in the wake of the NYPD’s response to a violent occupation of nearby Hamilton Hall Tuesday night, photos reveal.
Instead of rows of tents, grass from the university’s once-green lawn could be seen checkered with faded yellowish rectangles where the structures had ꦉbeen pitched.
Trampled brown grass could be seen between ♔the rows of cleared-out tents, where hundreds of demonstrators had congregated.
An aerial shot of the encampment — which brought campus life to a halt as anti-Israel protests raged for weeks — previously showed dozens of tents erected on tarps next to ap𒁃parent trash and su𝕴pplies.
Students were reeling Wednesday morning after cops ousted the group of rioters — which Mayor Eric Adams said included “outside agitators” — who smashed windows, hung an “intifada” banner and destroyed furniture while occupying Hamilton Hall for nearly 24 hours.
“I’m definitely c🅰oncerned for my fellow students here because a lot of the students here have never experienced this disconcerting mob mentality,” junior Drake Harding-Paul told The Post.
“I defi𝐆nitely don’t feel safe on campus,” he said, adding that university leaders should have called the police long ago to clear the tent city tha♑t sprung up on campus about two weeks ago.
“I think the response ꦅlast night was long overdue. I really do think it should have happened along time ago.”
The tent city was a distraction that 🧸caused some students to be cut off from access to school resources, he said.
Follow The Post’s live blog for the latest on anti-Israel protests on campuses across the US
“If you live off campus, you are not allowed on campus, which is a ♏complete alienation. We pay tuition, we are students here, we are not allowed access to what we paid for,” he said.
“We still can’t access campus today and I have finals due on Friday🌃.🐻”
Rory Wilson, a senior🌃, said he and others tried to block a mob of violent protesters from entering Hamilton Hall💦 on Monday.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the pro-terror protests at colleges across the US:
- Tear gas sprayed at UCLA encampment as cops face off with anti-Israel protesters wielding fire extinguishers
- Stanford submits ‘deeply disturbing’ photo of campus anti-Israel protester wearing Hamas headband to FBI
- Iranian college offers free tuition to US students expelled for participating in anti-Israel protests: ‘Our people’
- MAP: US colleges where students have been arrested over anti-Israel protests
“They were very much harassing us and manhandling us — enough, I believe, to qualify assaไult,” he said. “I was also saying I have the right to protest your protest.”
He a෴dded, “It’s unfortunate that it came to this because it obviously has been enormously disruptive to student life.”
University officials🎐 Tuesday finally called on police for help with the devolving situation on campus.
More than 100 protesters were arrested as hundreds of poli♋ce stormed the campus at around 9 p.m.
Antisemitism controversy at Columbia University: Key events
- Columbia University President Minouche Shafik stepped down on Aug. 14 after facing backlash over the Ivy League’s anti-Israel protests.
- More than 280 anti-Israel demonstrators were cuffed at Columbia and the City of New York campuses in a “massive” NYPD operation a few months ago.
- Over 100 people were nabbed at the Ivy League campus after cops responded to Columbia’s request to help oust a destructive mob that had illegally taken ov✤er the Hamilton Hall academic ཧbuilding in April, NYC Mayor Eric Adams and police said.
- Hizzoner blamed the on-campus chaos on insurgents who have a “history of escalating situations and trying to create chaos” instead of protesting peacefully.
- More than 100 Columbia profes꧒sors signed a letter defending students who support the “military action” by Hamas.
On๊ Wednesday, a lawn next to the area where the encampment stood was apparently bein𝐆g prepped for a graduation ceremony Wednesday.