Dramatic footage showed police climbing a ladder to enter Hamilton Hall, which had been occupied at Columbia University, and later removing people handcuffed with zip ties.

The university had earlier told any students involved to leave or face expulsion.

Officials have said the building was cleared and no injuries were reported.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) said on Wednesday that nearly 300 people in total were arrested - including 119 at Columbia University and 173 from the nearby City College of New York - on charges of trespassing, criminal mischief and burglary.

The NYPD is still working to decipher who was affiliated with the university out of those who were arrested.

At Wednesday's news conference, New York Mayor Eric Adams said students had a "right to protest".

But he added: "There's nothing peaceful about barricading buildings, destroying property or dismantling security cameras."

The demonstrators want the university to divest from Israel over its continuing deadly military operation in the Gaza Strip.

Follow live coverage following police raid at Columbia University

The Columbia protest is one of dozens across the country, including at campuses in Texas, California, Georgia, North Carolina, Utah, Virginia, New Mexico, California, New Jersey, Connecticut and Louisiana, where police have arrested more than 1,000 protesters.

The Columbia arrests came just before violence erupted over the war in Gaza at another campus hundreds of miles away on the West Coast.

Lengthy clashes broke out early Wednesday morning between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the University of California in Los Angeles, after school administrators moved to shut down an encampment it called "unlawful".