The White House denounced non-peaceful efforts to protest the bombardment in Gaza as students at Columbia University occupied a campus building, saying it was “the wrong approach”, Reuters reports.

White House spokesman John Kirby said the White House was watching the escalating protests on US campuses carefully, even as protests also spread in Europe and the region.

“The president believes that forcibly taking over a building on campus is absolutely the wrong approach. That is not an example of peaceful protests,” Kirby told reporters at a briefing.

“There’s no active effort to look at federalising the National Guard at this time,” he said.

Kirby added that he was not aware of any evidence of bad actors at the college protests sweeping the country.

Kirby underscored the government’s support for free speech rights and the right to protest but said it was critical to ensure those protests remained peaceful and did not pose a threat to other students.

President Joe Biden “condemns the use of the term ‘intifada,’ (uprising) as he has the other tragic and dangerous hate speech displayed in recent days,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates added in a statement.

“Forcibly taking over buildings is not peaceful it is wrong. And hate speech and hate symbols have no place in America,” Bates said in a statement.