Columbia University officials on Tuesday threatened academic expulsion of students who seized and occupied a classroom building, intensifying a nearly two-week standoff between administrators and pro-Palestinian activists on the Manhattan campus, Reuters reports.

The occupation began overnight when protesters broke windows and entered Hamilton Hall, where they unfurled a banner reading “Hind’s Hall,” symbolically renaming the building for a 6-year-old Palestinian child killed in Gaza by the Israeli military.

Outside the eight-story, neo-classical building — the site of various student occupations on the Ivy League campus dating back to the 1960s — protesters blocked the entrance with tables, linked arms to form a barricade and chanted pro-Palestinian slogans.

A day earlier, the university said it had begun suspending students who defied a deadline for vacating a tent camp that has become a focal point for dozens of student demonstrations around the US expressing opposition to Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

“Disruptions on campus have created a threatening environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty and a noisy distraction that interferes with the teaching, learning and preparing for final exams,” the university said in a statement on Tuesday.