Jewish anti-Zionist protesters storm NYC’s Trump Tower in support of Mahmoud Khalil
NYPD confirms multiple arrests as demonstrators from Jewish Voice for Peace rally to demand release of detained Columbia University anti-Israel activist
Luke Tress is The Times of Israel's New York correspondent.
NEW YORK — Dozens of protesters stormed Trump Tower in New York City on Thursday to demand the release of detained Columbia University protest organizer Mahmoud Khalil.
The protest came amid furious backlash over the Trump administration’s detention of Khalil, which has set off a legal battle and daily protests in New York since his arrest on Saturday night.
The anti-Zionist activist group Jewish Voice for Peace posted images showing dozens of protesters chanting in the midtown Manhattan building lobby.
“Free Mahmoud, free them all,” the protesters chanted.
The demonstrators carried signs that said, “Fight Nazis, not students,” and “Jews for Palestinian Freedom,” and wore red shirts that said “Stop arming Israel.”
“As Jews, we are taking over the Trump Tower to register our mass refusal,” JVP said in a statement. “We will not stand by as this fascist regime attempts to criminalize Palestinians and all those calling for an end to the Israeli government’s US-funded genocide of the Palestinian people.”
As Jews, we are taking over the Trump Tower to register our mass refusal. We will not stand by as this fascist regime attempts to criminalize Palestinians and all those calling for an end to the Israeli government’s US-funded genocide of the Palestinian people. And we will never… pic.twitter.com/t2Ql8qRBgw
— Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive) March 13, 2025
The group posted footage of police removing protesters from the building.
The NYPD told The Times of Israel that multiple individuals were taken into custody but that the number of arrests and charges had not been finalized.
Khalil, a green card holder who finished graduate studies at Columbia in December, was a leading organizer for the university’s anti-Israel protest coalition.
He was detained by immigration agents outside his home in New York on Saturday and remains in custody as his defense team seeks his release in an ongoing legal battle in a federal court in Manhattan.
The White House has said Khalil was detained and faces deportation due to his protest group distributing pro-Hamas propaganda. Federal law prohibits aliens from espousing support for terror groups.
Khalil’s supporters say he is being prosecuted for free speech.
His detention is part of a wider crackdown on campus antisemitism by the Trump administration, which has also cut $400 million in funding to Columbia, announced investigations into dozens of other universities, and threatened to deport more foreign activists.
