Columbia anti-Israel student groups start spring semester with protests

Columbia University anti-Israel activists hold protests to mark the start of the spring semester.

Several dozen protesters gather outside the university’s gates on Broadway while students demonstrate on campus.

The crowd outside chants “We will honor all our martyrs,” “smash the settler Zionist state” and “intifada people’s war” to the beat of a snare drum.

Most of the protesters’ faces are covered in medical masks or keffiyehs.

“Columbia you will see, we resist till victory,” they chant.

The protest is organized by Columbia student groups in collaboration with outside anti-Israel activist organizations.

A handful of pro-Israel counterprotesters hold Israeli flags and chants “The people of Israel live” (Am Yisrael Hai) in Hebrew.

Students and faculty look on as they wait in the frigid cold to enter the campus. Police set up a metal barricade separating the line and the activists.