NEW YORK — NYPD officers arrested more than 100 Columbia University students Thursday after groups protesting the war in Gaza refused to take down a two-day encampment zone.

Hundreds of cops flooded the campus at the request of the university president, with buses on standby to transport demonstrators downtown for trespassing. Other students, undeterred by the police’s show of force with batons and helmets, continued to chant on the lawn and briefly set up new tents some yards away.

“I regret that all of these attempts to resolve the situation were rejected by the students involved,” university President Minouche Shafik wrote to students, saying she’d provided multiple warnings. “As a result, NYPD officers are now on campus and the process of clearing the encampment is underway.”

Police said at least 108 protesters were taken into custody and processed at NYPD Headquarters, then released with a summons. All were charged with trespassing. Two were also hit with charges for obstructing police from carrying out their jobs.

“Students have a right to free speech,” Mayor Adams said at a press conference after the crackdown, “but do not have a right to violate university policies and disrupt learning on campus.”

The action drew swift criticism from some students and civil rights groups.

“It is disturbing to see a campus move so quickly to arrest students for peacefully expressing their political views within the free-speech zone,” Kristen Shahverdian, program director of campus free speech at PEN America.

The move came the day after Shafik defended the administration’s response to campus antisemitism before Congress. Since her testimony, tensions had been climbing at Columbia amid clashes with the police and student suspensions over the campus encampment.

Students had pledged that the demonstration, a series of green tents called the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, would remain until the university meets their demand to divest Columbia’s finances from companies and institutions that profit from Israel. Signs declared the encampment a “liberated zone,” and demanded “ceasefire now” and “free Palestine,” according to photos shared with the Daily News in the morning.

The demonstration lasted 30 hours, Adams said, until university officials and police intervened.

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