An Israeli student at Columbia University in New York City was assaulted with a stick outside the Ivy League school’s main library, as tensions on campus over the Israel-Hamas conflict continue to increase.
The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said officers responded to the area of the library at about 6:10 p.m. Wednesday, for a report of an assault on a 24-year-old man.
When officers arrived, they learned the man was involved in an argument with 19-year-old Maxwell Freidman of Brooklyn, over flyers he and friends posted with names and pictures of Israeli hostages captured by Hamas.
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Police said Freidman “identifies as female.”
The victim told the Columbia Daily Spectator — a university student newspaper — he approached Freidman when he saw her ripping down the flyers.
The Israeli student asked only to be identified by his initials, “I.A.” because of safety concerns, the publication reported.
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One of I.A.’s friends told the paper I.A., and other students first encountered Freidman when they were posting flyers in Uris Hall on Wednesday. Friedman told the group she was Jewish and asked to help, which the group welcomed.
Later that evening, at about 5:30 p.m., I.A. and a few of his friends noticed Freidman ripping the posters down, outside of Butler Library.
The Spectator reported that Freidman was wearing a bandanna over her face when the group approached her, and she began throwing obscenities at the group and charged I.A. with a stick, even trying to punch him.
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By the end of the scuffle, one of the victim’s hands was bruised and the ring finger on his other hand was broken, I.A. told the newspaper.
I.A. expressed concerns about the situation, saying he does not plan to return to campus anytime soon due to safety.
“We were all kind of shocked that this stuff can happen on our own campus, which should be a safe haven,” he told the Spectator. “We don’t know how to handle the situation, let alone that our families and friends are going through the worst nightmare, and we are mentally in the same ship with them.”
Freidman was arrested and charged with assault.
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Columbia University did not immediately respond to inquiries from Fox News Digital about the matter.
More than 1,900 people have been killed in the war since Hamas launched its largest attack on Israel in decades on Saturday, leading to retaliatory action from Israeli forces.
Along with the fallen thousands more have been wounded, and many others taken hostage, raped, tortured and murdered by Hamas.
Columbia is not alone when it comes to heightened tensions over the war, as other universities across the country are encountering similar tensions.
The Students for Justice in Palestine chapters purport in their respective statements released since Saturday that Israel is not the victim and Hamas is fighting for liberation.
“We invariably reject Israel’s framing as a victim,” a chapter at the University of California, Berkeley said. “Whereas to demonize and condemn indigenous resistance is to overshadow the decades of oppression, ethnic cleansing, and destruction of the Palestinian people.
“We support the resistance, we support the liberation movement, and we indisputably support the uprising,” the group added.
Another chapter at George Washington University said it, too, stands “in full support of the liberation of our homeland,” and their right to resist the “violent 75-year-long colonization” of their homeland.
Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion and Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.
