New York police were called on Wednesday after protesters took over a room at the Columbia University Library, a pro-Palestine demonstration on campus that rocked the country last spring.

Columbia University said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that it is “handling the interference of Butler Library 301”, noting that its public safety team is “working to mitigate the situation.”

Columbia did not call New York Police Department officials until hours after the disruption began. The department said at 7:10 p.m. that it was “responsive to a ongoing situation on campus that occupied the library and was trespassing.”

NBC News crew witnessed about 76 protesters in zipper tiees being taken out of the building by officers. A New York Police Department spokesman said multiple arrests were made, but no numbers were provided.

At present, at the direct request of Columbia University, the New York Police Department responded to what is going on ongoing on campus, where individuals occupied the library and were trespassing. Multiple individuals who did not comply with the New York Police Department's verbal warnings for dispersed were detained.

The school requires participants to identify themselves and leave the house. It said in an update to the evening that it repeatedly asked protesters to identify and said they were “repeatedly told that failure to comply would violate our rules and policies and could be arrested for trespassing.”

Demonstrators were banned from leaving the library without providing identification to public safety officials. The video posted on social media, with a group of protesters whose faces were covered by Keffiyehs, appearing to try to force them through a set of doors that appear to be a group of security personnel standing.

The video shows officials appear to have rejected and pushed the group's appeal on the megaphone. The speaker said that if the protesters took out their ID cards, they would let the protesters go, and the group responded to "No!" to this. Then he shouted, "Let's go!"

Colombia's evening update prompted protesters to refuse to identify themselves and leave.

Due to the number of individuals involved in the internal and external interruptions of the building, a large number of people trying to force themselves into Butler’s Library creates a safety hazard, and an important presence of individuals we believe are not affiliated with the university, the presence of the NYPD is a necessary step to require the presence of the New York Norpes to help ensure the safety of the buildings and our communities. ”

"Ask the presence of the NYPD is not the result we want, but it is absolutely necessary to ensure the safety of our community," the statement continued.

It said two Colombian public safety officials were injured in what the school calls a "crowd surge" when people tried to "force" them into the library.

The university allows others in the library who are not involved in the protest to leave the building. In the alert sent to students, it said that the library is closed and that the area should be kept clear.

"Interference to our academic activities will not be tolerated and violates our rules and policies; this is particularly unacceptable when our students study and prepare for final exams," Colombia said in a statement. "Colombia strongly condemns our campuses, anti-Semitism, and all forms of hatred and discrimination, and we have witnessed some of them today."

At around 3:30 p.m., Columbia University segregated Divest (CUAD), a group called on the university to divest its ties from Israel and announced “emergency rally: The All-out Butler Library” in a social media post.

"100 activists have retracted their main reading rooms as popular universities in Basil-Ar-Araj," the group said. The post called on others to "support, bring noise and wear masks."

"The flood shows that as long as Colombian imperialist violence is money and profits, people will continue to undermine Colombia's profits and legitimacy," Kud wrote in the alternative article. "The repression will breed resistance - if Colombia escalates the repression, the people will continue to escalate the disturbances on that campus."

Videos posted by the group Colombian Jews and Israeli students walking throughout the building show individuals chanting “Free, Free, Free Palestine”. The second video shows a large group of people, many wearing keffiyehs, gathering among people who seem to be reading rooms.

Those involved in the protests also seem to have caused damage to the structure in the library. Photos posted by Cuad seem to show messages, including “Free Gaza” and “We will always come back to Palestine”, written in the markings on the table and glass boxes.

Videos at the scene showed that outside the library, other masked protesters in various parts of the campus were still continuing to recite scriptures.

A video shows dozens of people on New York Police Department obstacles on a university campus, 114th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.

The protests only two days after Israel’s security cabinet approved plans to seize all the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the plan an intensified military action aimed at defeating Hamas.

Gaza remains blocked by Israel, the longest since the war began in October 2023 as Israel's full ban on all goods, including food, fuel and medical supplies, entered its third month.

The protests Wednesday also emerged as the Trump administration’s efforts to block federal funding at some universities, including Harvard and Columbia, as it said schools weren’t doing enough to combat anti-Semitism on campus.

In the alternative post, Cuad has insight into the location and meaning of the protests.

The group said it "renamed" the library to Basel al-Araj's popular university to mention Palestinian writer Basel Al-Araj, "the work of the Palestinian resistance and the work of revolutionaries in today's war guides around the world."

The group chose Butler Library to denounce the building’s eponymous name, Nicholas Murray Butler, the university’s former president, called “Shameless Nazi sympathizer.”

Kud also made claims on Colombia, including Israel’s full fiscal divestment, police, immigration and customs law enforcement officers leaving campus and amnesty for all “discipline goals by Columbia University.”

After meeting with student groups during a pro-Palestinian protest on campus in April last year, then-President Minouche Shafik said the school would not withdraw from Israel and that it and students could not reach any agreement at the time to end the protest.

The university announced in March that people participating in protests that occupied protests on campus last spring were “suspended for years, temporarily revoked and expelled.” It is not clear how many students are involved in the activity.

As Cuad's request suggests, it is unclear whether the ICE agent has been on the Colombian campus, but in recent months agents have been on the house at least once, when they detained student protest organizer Mahmoud Khalil in his university-owned apartment building. Khalil has been detained in Louisiana shortly after his arrest and has been battling his detention and potential deportation in court.

Within two days after Khalil's arrest, the university said its policy was to comply with the law, but also required law enforcement agencies operating in its non-public space to have judicial orders. The Trump administration later said Khalil was detained without an arrest warrant.

In March, the school agreed to restore its list of requirements to deprive federal funds. One of the requirements is to hire 36 new campus security personnel, who, unlike previous security personnel, will be able to arrest students.