A group of protesters plan to set up a tent camp on Columbia University campus this week to protest the war in Gaza, according to three familiar plans and conference recordings plans shared with NBC News.
The planned camp was over a year after students first erected about 50 tents on the university lawn to protest the war and caught the attention of the world.
The demonstrations partially fueled efforts by the Trump administration to extract concessions from Colombia, saying the university failed to calm anti-Semitism on its campus.
The camp plan has been shrouded in confidentiality.
The coordination meeting was held Tuesday night at the Community Center near Bushwick, Brooklyn, based on screenshots of signal information from organizers and one person at the meeting.
According to those attending the meeting, invitations to the meeting were largely distributed in person or by phone.
The person said that more than 100 people were present at the party, all wearing masks to cover up their identity. The person said it was not clear whether all participants were students from Colombia.
According to the recording, instead of introducing the speakers with names, student organizers use signal usernames and code names (including beloved Pokémon “Squirtle” and words like “butterfly”) to distinguish one another.
Organizers have not yet called the upcoming camp “camp” based on screenshots of the organizers’ signal messages and conversations with two people familiar with the protest plans. Written and verbally, participants designated the camp with the code name “circus.”
The recording said organizers asked protesters not to arrive on campus during the protests, saying they could remind campus safety personnel.
“This year I feel more organized and cautious,” the person at the meeting said.
Colombia did not confirm or deny whether it was aware of the upcoming protests.
“Our focus is on protecting the safety of the community and ensuring that the university can conduct all academic activities normally,” a university spokesperson said in a statement. “As usual, we are closely monitoring any distractions and are currently conducting campus activities as usual.”
The spokesman added that the camp violated the university’s policy and participation could lead to disciplinary action.
Last year, protesters waved the Palestinian flag at the protest camp at Columbia University Quad.
According to the recording, students plan to establish camps on Thursday at the main university campus near Morningside Heights in Manhattan and hold a second camp on Friday at the Manhattanville campus near the university.
“When we take over the lawn, our goal is to unify the space and make it our own,” one organizer said.
Thursday’s camp was scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. on the western Butler lawn on the university’s main campus, where the camp was established last year and dispersed before nightfall or before police entered the campus.
There will be a second camp that is expected to be more robust and start from the next day. It is not clear when the camp will begin, but according to the recording, students plan to keep indefinitely and expect arrests.
Organizers chose to hold Friday’s camp on the Manhattanville campus, home to the University’s Business School, according to those attending the meeting – because unlike the main campus, it did not walk the door to outsiders.
A spokesman at the meeting also said the site of the second camp was intended to protest the university's gentrification of Harlem.
“Any action we take will bring police, will bring repression, we think deeply, we realize that,” a spokesperson at the meeting said. “And we are trapped in this situation is also a situation of violence.”
Organizers of the upcoming protests have distributed several guidelines obtained by NBC News to student protesters. These guidelines cover legal risks associated with protests, best practices to meet law enforcement and strategies to ensure their numbers exist.
Documentary recommendations regarding digital security are only communicated through encrypted messaging services (such as signals, phone calls) or in person via encrypted messages. It also shows that students turn off Wi-Fi on their phones during protests to avoid being tracked by the university.
Another form shared and obtained by organizers, NBC News, requires students to provide “all the information needed to support your legal defense” for emergency contact when arrested.
The New York Police Department detained protesters in a pro-Palestine protest camp at Columbia University last year.
It requires student protesters to list any medical conditions, insurance information, prescriptions, whether there is a dependent, government ID card, address and emergency contact information on how to access an apartment or home.
“Given the Trump administration’s commitment to federal lawsuits against the Plastin protesters and the kidnapping of our comrade Mahmoud Khalil, we now require students to prepare not only for potential arrests and jail time, but also for long-term jail time.” “Think seriously about how you will prepare for a few weeks or months.”
Amid the university protests last year, a protest at the upcoming camps inspired similar demonstrations on university campuses across the country and around the world. Dozens of students attending the camp were arrested by local authorities or expelled from the university.
According to Israel, the protests were caused by the Israeli military's response to the terrorist attack on Hamas on October 7, 2023, with more than 1,200 people killed and about 250 were taken hostage. According to Gaza health officials, more than 51,000 people were killed in the war and millions were displaced.
Student activists held demonstrations last year in an attempt to evacuate the university with companies associated with the Israeli government.
Camps are here, too, driven by the Trump administration’s push to get involved in Colombia and some of the oldest higher education institutions in the United States. The federal government canceled the university’s federal grant on March 7, part of what the Trump administration calls a broader effort to “take roots” of anti-Semitism on university campuses.
To resume grants to fund top research expeditions at dozens of universities, Colombia agreed to a list of government requests on March 21.
The demand includes in most cases the creation of mask bans on protests; hiring outsiders to oversee the Ministry of Research in the East, South Asia and Africa; working on “larger institutional neutrality”; and arresting thirty new security officials with newly installed powers to arrest students.
Faced with the Trump administration's own deal, Harvard rejected the administration's request and sued the administration several days later aiming to restore billions of dollars in funding.
The protests also came weeks after federal immigration officials arrested at least three Colombian students who participated in student-led protests, including 30-year-old Mahmoud Khalil.
This article was originally published on nbcnews.com.
