GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for the death penalty for pro-Palestine college campus protesters, describing them as “raging lunatics and Hamas sympathizers,” and declaring “we can’t let them do this to our country.”

“Through the centuries the Jews have endured terrible persecution, and you know that. We’ve all read it, studied it, they’ve gone through a lot,” said Trump.

“Those seeking the Jews destruction, we will seek their destruction,” said Trump.

“When you have crimes like this, whether it’s this one, or that one, or another group. We have to bring back the death penalty. They must pay the ultimate price. They can’t do this. They can’t do this to our country. We must draw a line in the sand and say very strongly ‘never again.’

Trump said on Wednesday it “was a beautiful thing to watch” NYPD officers raiding a Columbia University building occupied by pro-Palestine, anti-Israel students, and called on officials to crack down on campus protests across the US.

“New York was under siege last night,” Trump told supporters at a campaign rally in Wisconsin, praising the police officers for arresting more than 300 protesters at Columbia and City College of New York whom he referred to as “raging lunatics and Hamas sympathizers.”

Many student protesters are demanding an immediate ceasefire in the war on the Hamas terror group in Gaza and that their universities divest from companies with military and economic ties to Israel.

The students are protesting Israel’s war in Gaza and demanding that their universities cut financial and academic ties with Israel.

At some schools including Brown University and the University of California, Riverside, school officials have struck deals with students to peacefully end the encampments.