WATCH: Cooper Union Jewish students lock themselves inside library as pro-Palestine group bangs on doors

Chaos ensued on Wednesday, October 25, when Jewish students of Cooper Union College in New York City had to be barricaded in the library as pro-Palestine supporters banged on the locked doors shouting "Free Palestine." While the NYPD was present during the whole ordeal, student witnesses revealed that they were asked not to get involved by the college administration.

Eleven Jewish students were trapped inside the college's seventh-floor library and were later escorted out via a back entrance. This incident follows a string of anti-Israel and pro-Palestine protests throughout the country. Multiple universities, including Harvard, have reported incidents of antisemitism.

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Jewish Cooper Union students barricaded from aggressive pro-Palestine protestors

On Wednesday, a group of student demonstrators carrying Palestinian flags and pro-Palestine signs were scheduled to protest at 1 p.m. outside of the Cooper Union Foundation Building at 7 East 7th Street.

Viral videos show the group chanting slogans such as "people are occupied" and "resistance is justified" while protestors carrying posters of kidnapped Israeli kids stood on the opposite end.

Further videos show the group bypassing security, entering the campus interior, and climbing up the stairs while shouting protest slogans. A student witness told The New York Post that the protestor allegedly made a beeline for the office of University President Laura Spark to demand a public condemnation of the attacks on Gaza but later decided to move towards the library.

Once security was alerted of their presence at the 7th level, eleven Jewish students inside the library were barricaded by security, which prevented the protestors from moving inside. Despite the efforts of the security, the protestors banged their hands on the wall and yelled out slogans anyway. Most of the trapped Cooper Union students called either their relatives or 911.

A Jewish Cooper Union senior who witnessed the unfolding of the events told The New York Post that the group of protestors was spewing rhetoric that was anti-Zionist and antisemitic in nature. The student described to The Post the fear they were in when protesters knocked at the door. The student stated:

"I was crying. I think if the doors weren’t locked — I don’t know what would have happened."

They added:

"I don’t want to speculate what would’ve happened. It just makes me too nervous."

The Cooper Union student witness said that college administrators did not want the police to get involved. The university president allegedly used a backdoor to get away from the protestors.

The same backdoor was offered to allegedly escort out the trapped students, but they decided to stay until the situation calmed down. The library was closed for around 20 minutes.

The student witness insinuated to The Post that if the president was that scared for her own safety, the police should have been called. The student asked:

"Why would they leave the students in the building without police protection when the president of the school who was also targeted left herself?"

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It follows a string of antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents in universities across the country. Earlier this month, Harvard students wrote a letter blaming Israel entirely for the violence resulting from the conflict, and a Stanford professor allegedly called his Jewish students "colonizers." There have also been increased reports of Israeli hostage posters being torn down.