Dozens of protesters occupied Hamilton Hall at approximately 12:30 a.m. on April 30, demanding full University divestment from companies with ties to Israel. The protesters renamed Hamilton “Hind’s Hall” in honor of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by the Israeli military in Gaza on Jan. 29.

“Columbia helped to fund her murder by choosing to keep investing in a genocide of her people,” Columbia University Apartheid Divest wrote in an Instagram post on the same day. “May Hind’s memory live on in all of the people and places who honor her.”

Demonstrators occupied the building hours after University President Minouche Shafik released a statement which read that “the University will not divest from Israel.” She listed offers the administration had presented to encampment organizers in negotiations, including the establishment of a process for “students to access a list of Columbia’s direct investment holdings,” the creation of a faculty committee “to address academic freedom,” and the making of “investments in health and education in Gaza.”

Organizers with CUAD and Columbia’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine wrote in an Instagram post on April 30 that the negotiations had been in “bad faith” and that the administration had “threatened mass suspension and eviction and even considered calling the National Guard on its students.” A University spokesperson had previously called claims of calling in the National Guard “untrue and unsubstantiated.”

The organizers added that “an autonomous group of students” would “remain in Hamilton until the University divests from death.”

“This action reflects the student body’s overwhelming support for divestment from the Israeli occupation,” the organizers wrote.

Hamilton has an extensive history of student protests. Nearly 90 Black Columbia students occupied the building for over a week in 1986, renaming it the “Malcolm X Liberation College” in protest of the construction of a gym in Morningside Park and the ongoing war in Vietnam. In 1985, students barricaded themselves in Hamilton for almost three weeks to demand the University divest from apartheid in South Africa. They renamed it “Mandela Hall” in honor of Nelson Mandela, a prominent anti-apartheid civil rights activist. Students again occupied Hamilton in 1996 for four days to demand the University create an ethnic studies department.

Over the course of roughly 22 hours, Spectator reporters and photographers captured the timeline of the events at Hamilton on April 30. These photographs show the occupation in the moments before the New York Police Department swept campus for a second time under Shafik’s authorization, less than two weeks after it cleared the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on April 18.

At 11:30 p.m. on April 29, about an hour before the occupation of Hamilton began, campus was relatively quiet. Legal observers and Columbia University Emergency Medical Services staff linger in the area around the encampment.

Before the occupation of Hamilton Hall, groups of protesters held meetings across campus, including in front of the Journalism School and by Philosophy Hall, John Jay Hall, and Lewisohn Hall. A picket around the Sundial begins forming at around 12:29 a.m.

At around 12:30 a.m., a group of protesters cuts away from the main picket line circling around the Sundial and rushes to enter Hamilton with metal barricades, bags filled with supplies, and banners. An individual already inside the building opened the front doors to allow entry. As the protesters entered the building, people cheered and clapped.

At 12:34 a.m., a protester breaks the bottom windows of the right door to Hamilton with a hammer, reaching through the window to secure the door with a bike lock.

The protesters inside Hamilton begin quickly locking the doors and barricading the entrances with zip ties, chains, tables, chairs, and other tools as those on the outside hold the doors shut. Inside, members of the press, student journalists, and Facilities workers stand in the lobby.

Protesters outside Hamilton Hall begin to pass supplies through the broken window of the right door, including a banner that was later unfurled against the building’s facade.

One protester wearing plastic gloves reaches through the broken window and briefly unlocks the rightmost Hamilton door to allow a Facilities worker behind them to exit before immediately relocking the door with a bike lock.

One of the Facilities workers, who was inside Hamilton before the occupation, is let out of the building through the right entrance at 12:38 a.m., around eight minutes after the occupation began.

Around 12:50 a.m., demonstrators, including multiple Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers union members, continue to protest, expanding the picket around the Sundial and South Lawn as Hamilton is barricaded.

As protesters seal off Hamilton, a group of demonstrators forms a human chain outside the building’s entrance and chants, “Viva viva Palestinia” and “From the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever.”

A photojournalist is pictured inside the building at 12:52 a.m. as the human chain of protesters forms.

Protesters inside Hamilton fill the space between the two sets of doors with wooden chairs to further barricade the building.

By 1 a.m., protesters had formed multiple layers of human chains barricading the entrance to Hamilton, chanting and clapping their hands.

Protesters carried black iron tables from outside Hartley Hall to barricade Hamilton’s doors from the outside. After the first table is brought up, two individuals stand in front of Hamilton’s middle entryway to try to prevent students from moving more tables.

“We’re just trying to prevent this mob from taking hold of this University. The reason I’m standing here is because I love this University, I love freedom, and I love America,” one of the individuals told Spectator.

The two counterprotesters attempt to stop the protesters by pushing the table against those building the barricade. Protesters formed a circle around one of the individuals blocking the entrance and moved him away from it. The other individual blocking the table eventually decided to move away from the barricade.

Meanwhile, protesters around campus begin moving tents from the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on South Lawn onto Lewisohn Lawn, where they would set up another encampment.

Those aiding in the occupation continue to blockade the doors, using a bike lock and ratchets to attach the tables after counterprotesters moved from the area.

The picket around the Sundial continues as Hamilton is barricaded. Protesters chant and clap as a Palestinian flag waves.

As protesters pull the blinds over windows on the upper floors of Hamilton, more protesters begin covering other windows and entrance doors with newspapers.

A protester inside Hamilton holds up peace signs as they hang a Palestinian flag from a south-facing window. People below chanted, “Free free free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

At 1:40 a.m., protesters unfurl and zip=tie a banner to the balcony of Hamilton. The crowd below cheered, and one occupying protester spoke, saying, “This building is liberated in honor of Hind, a six-year-old Palestinian child, murdered in Gaza by the Israeli Occupation Forces, funded by Columbia University.”

Around 1:40 a.m., protesters unfurl another banner on the west side of Hamilton, which reads “Gaza Calls, Columbia Falls.” Posters with the same design were hung up throughout campus. The design is similar to posters used in the May 1968 protests in France, which began with a series of student occupations of universities in protests against capitalism. The posters from 1968 typically read “La beauté est dans la rue,” or “The beauty is in the street,” and also depicted a protester throwing a brick.

At approximately 1:50 a.m., a large crowd of students and passersby stop in the courtyard in front of Hartley to witness the unfolding scene at Hamilton.

Around 1:55 a.m., protesters inside Hamilton drop another banner as those outside on the ground cheer, play drums, and chant,“Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest.”

Protesters surrounding Hamilton at 2 a.m. continued to sing, chant, and listen to music. Other protesters hand out water bottles to those sitting in the human chain and watching from the Hamilton steps.

Protesters on the balcony led chants for those below, saying, “Raise, raise, raise, raise, raise the flag of the revolution” in Arabic.

Around 2 a.m., three protesters inside Hamilton hang a fourth banner from a window on the east side of the building facing Amsterdam Avenue. The banner reads “Free Palestine” in English and Arabic.

At around 2:24 a.m., a protester holds a fifth banner and climbs along a ledge between two sixth-floor windows of Hamilton as students watch from below. Once it was secured, the protesters unfurled the banner, which read “Student Intifada.”

Meanwhile, another group of protesters barricade and sit in front of the Columbia Undergraduate Admissions office entrance to Hamilton. This entrance sits on the opposite side of the main entrance, facing north.

Multiple faculty members donning orange safety vests talk to the students seated in front of the admissions office entrance to Hamilton.

More protesters come out onto the balcony of Hamilton at around 3 a.m., waving keffiyehs and a Palestinian flag. One of the protesters used a megaphone to begin singing with those below, “Just like a tree that’s growing by the water, we shall not be moved.”

One group of protesters quietly sets up another encampment outside Lewisohn. About 15 tents remained there through the night.

Protesters, including members of the SWC-UAW union, sit and rest by the Sundial at around 3 a.m. after picketing around the encampment for hours.

Nearly two and half hours after the occupation began, protesters seated outside Hamilton take turns leading songs and chants to the beat played by another protester on a drum that rests on an overturned table.

Alma Mater sits at 3:09 a.m. with a keffiyeh draped around her neck and a Palestinian flag in her left hand. A white T-shirt wrapped around her staff features a screen-printed design that reads “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and lists the encampment’s demands.

At 3:18 a.m., protesters inside Hamilton appear again, this time in and on the windows on the west side of the building, cheering in solidarity with the protesters still on the ground below.

Protesters from inside Hamilton duct-tape a banner that reads“Liberation Education” to the west side of the building.

Behind the “Liberation Education” banner, numerous chairs pulled from classrooms in Hamilton sit stacked on top of the admissions office entrance.

At 4 a.m., one protester sits with their legs dangling off of the balcony of Hamilton, while another speaks through a megaphone and a third—draped in a Palestinian flag—makes a heart with their hands to the protesters below. Throughout the night, protesters both inside and outside Hamilton continued to sing, “Your people are my people, our struggles align.”

Around 11:30 a.m., multiple people were asleep on the ground outside Hamilton, covering their bodies and faces with blankets, keffiyehs, or masks. The occupation continued through a quiet Tuesday morning as the Morningside campus closed to all individuals except essential personnel and students living in on-campus residence halls.

In the afternoon, the large number of chairs that had been taken from within Hamilton the night before remained on top of the entrance to the admissions office.

Protesters and tents from the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” sit outside Hamilton in the late afternoon. Protesters had hung a tarp over the broken window in the right entrance to Hamilton earlier that day.

Protesters use a pulley system to bring supplies up in front of the middle entrance to Hamilton. Another pulley was constructed over the rightmost entrance of the building.

At 3:30 pm, protesters carry tents from the encampment in front of Lewisohn to the newer one in front of Hamilton.

Later in the afternoon, protesters sitting outside the admissions office entrance to Hamilton use umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun and the numerous members of the press on campus who were taking pictures of them.

A student organizer speaks at around 3:40 p.m. during a rally hosted in part by the People’s Forum at the 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue gates.

In a speech to the crowd, a student organizer described the “broader context” of the occupation of Hamilton, speaking to the first successful divestment movement at Columbia when the University divested from South Africa in 1985.

“The people believed that what was happening in South Africa was right, just as people are saying right now,” the speaker said. “But with collective organizing, with support from faculty, from every constituency, from our neighbors outside, from the power of students here, that we can win.”

Protesters outside the 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue gates pass water bottles to those inside the Morningside campus gates.

On the morning of April 30, Columbia restricted access to its Morningside campus to students residing in on-campus residence halls and “essential personnel.” The lockdown followed a number of restrictions placed on campus access since the fall semester. The only access point to enter and exit the Morningside campus was the 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue gates. One of the speakers facing the crowd said, “In response to our victory, Columbia has decided to threaten us again and again and again with suspension, including a siege on its own students.”

“Many Columbia students don’t live on this campus and they are preventing them from coming into their own campus. The administration is scared of the students and faculty. They should be,” the speaker added.

At 3:59 p.m., two NYPD police officers enter Low Library through its southeast entrance.

At around 4:20 p.m., a protester waves a Palestinian flag from the roof of Hamilton Hall. The protester walked around the roof, eventually waving the flag over the protest on 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

Another banner hangs from the east side of Hamilton, facing Amsterdam Avenue. The poster reads “Glory to the Martyrs” in English and “Tortuguita vive La Lucha Sigue” in Spanish next to a drawing of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, a Venezuelan environmental activist. Terán, who went by the nickname “Tortuguita” or “little turtle,” was killed by Georgia state troopers in 2023 after a raid on a “Stop Cop City” encampment in Atlanta.

At around 6:50 p.m., protesters on the ground outside Hamilton tie a rope multiple times around a large piece of plywood before it is lifted up to the balcony. Two more pieces of wood were later lifted up to protesters, with onlookers cheering and clapping as the second piece of plywood reached the top.

Multiple windows are covered with newspaper pages.

Minutes after the protesters constructed the pulley system, at around 6:56 p.m., WKCR Station Manager Ted Schmiedeler, CC ’26, writes a note to the organizers, which he tried to have sent up with other supplies in the pulley. To no avail, he called up to student protesters on the balcony, urging them to let him throw up a microphone so that the protesters could broadcast their message to WKCR listeners.

Around 7 p.m., protesters decorate the fountain near Hamilton with stickers, a Palestinian flag, and drawn and cut out letters that read “People’s Fountain.” They sat behind a tarp on the ground that was full of water bottles and supplies.

Later in the evening, protesters on the ground fill up the black crate once more, this time with food from Hooda Halal, a halal truck with two locations near campus that serves as a Columbia staple.

Around 7:43 p.m., student journalists and onlookers begin staring into the sky as two police drones hover over Hamilton.

At around 8:14 pm, in anticipation of police entry into campus, student protesters assemble a human chain in front of Hamilton and the admissions office entrance in an attempt to protect those inside. Those at the main entrance began singing, “Your people are my people, your people are mine. Your people are my people, our struggles align.”

Shortly after 9 p.m., at Shafik’s request, the NYPD entered campus for the second time in two weeks. The NYPD entered Hamilton through ground-level entrances and through windows on higher floors using a staircase constructed on Amsterdam Avenue.

Protesters outside the building continued chanting while police forced student journalists and onlookers out of the area, trapping some inside John Jay and other buildings for hours. During the sweep, officers threw a protester down the stairs, smashed a barricade into protesters, threw wooden chairs, metal tables, and metal trash cans down the stairs, smashed windows, accidentally fired a gun, and arrested 109 protesters in and around the building.

The next morning, Shafik issued a statement thanking the NYPD for “their incredible professionalism and support.” Shafik cited the fact that her “first responsibility is safety” as reason for calling on the NYPD to sweep campus, including occupied Hamilton and the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

A week after the NYPD sweep, Hind Rajab’s mother, Wissam Hamadah, responded to the creation of “Hind’s Hall.”

“A woman saw me and asked are you the mother of Hind Rajab?” Hamada told television network Al Jazeera Mubasher, in a video posted to TikTok on May 8. “She told me that your daughter had a hall named after her at Columbia. To be quite honest, I started crying because I wanted all of these movements and support to come while Hind was still alive and not after. But I was still happy about it that there’s a possibility that Hind’s cause could move and mobilize people in this world.”

“My message to the whole world is… Wake up! Hind is not the only one. She is not Palestine’s first martyr,” Hamadah added. “We have more than 15,000 martyrs who are children. Wake up now! Why are others like Hind still going through this?”