NEW YORK — NYPD officers with batons and wearing helmets took dozens of Columbia University students into custody Thursday after groups protesting the war in Gaza refused to take down a two-day encampment zone.

Hundreds of cops entered campus in the early afternoon, with several “school buses” on standby to transport those arrested. Students continued to chant on the lawn throughout the day, and even began setting up new tents just a few yards away.

“I regret that all of these attempts to resolve the situation were rejected by the students involved,” university president Minouche Shafik said in a message to students. “As a result, NYPD officers are now on campus and the process of clearing the encampment is underway.”

No students have been criminally charged yet, cops said Thursday afternoon. The protesters were being processed at NYPD headquarters at One Police Plaza; most are expected to be released with a summons.

The action came the day after Shafik defended the administration’s response to campus antisemitism before Congress. Tensions over the last two days have been climbing at Columbia amid clashes with the police and student suspensions in response to 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 on Thursday morning.

One upperclassman saw the last of the protestors removed from the lawn and led to buses. He described the heavy police presence as “intimidating.”

“This is our campus, this is where we spend our time,” he said. “It seems ridiculous that the president would call the police in to prevent us from basically expressing ourselves, especially for such a serious and important cause.”

A pre-med student estimated 30 to 50 protestors were arrested. He said he witnessed one person on the ground who was picked up and ziptied at the hands and feet.

The arrests he observed were not “super violent,” he said. “But it obviously wasn’t gentle.”

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