A Hamilton College student has been charged with posting antisemitic remarks on campus, authorities said Monday.

New York State Police’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation responded to the private college located in upstate New York on Friday after receiving “a report of antisemitic remarks being posted on art canvases on campus,” police said in a news release.

Hamilton College said in a statement that on the evening of Oct. 10, a “community mural project was vandalized.” The school conducted its own investigation and student 19-year-old Adyn S. Brenden, from South Dakota, was identified as a suspect in “defacing of college property with hate speech.” 

New York State Police said its officers conducted interviews, reviewed video surveillance and developed the suspect as Brenden. He was located in his dorm room on Saturday and agreed to speak with state police during which he “ultimately admitted to posting the remarks,” officials said. 

During the interview Brenden said he observed a poster with all pro-Palestinian content on campus and he wrote “Kill the Jews wherever you find them” and drew swastikas. He said he wrote that message to “show people what was underlining the pro-Palestinian movement other than just the surface of what people saw,” and said he drew the swastikas to relate “what happened in Nazi Germany to what is happening today in Palestine.”

He was taken into custody and processed on a count of first-degree aggravated harassment. He is due to appear at Kirkland Town Court on Tuesday evening. 

Authorities said Hamilton College has suspended Brenden from campus pending a hearing for his dismissal from the school. 

Officials said “there remains no threat against students or faculty at Hamilton College.” 

Hamilton College said Brenden, part of the class of 2027, is “not currently in attendance at the college.” The school said he had not been suspected of posting anything antisemitic in the past.

“Hamilton College is grateful to the NYSP and Campus Safety for their work together in response to this situation. Hamilton College is committed to maintaining a safe campus free from bias acts, discrimination or harassment, where students have full access to their education and where all people are treated with respect,” the school said in a statement.

It is unclear whether the defendant has legal representation.

The arrest comes just days after Hamilton College’s Center for Jewish Life held a vigil on Oct. 7 marking the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ incursion on Israel, according to school paper, The Spectator.

More than 42,200 people have been killed in Gaza, according to local health officials, since Israel launched its military offensive there following the Oct. 7 attacks, in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 others taken hostage, according to Israeli officials. Israel has also launched an offensive in Lebanon, where the death toll is rising. 

The war triggered swathes of protests across U.S. cities and college campuses, with many student groups calling for their schools to divest from Israel and from companies that could be profiting from the war.

The conflict also led to a rise in reports of antisemitic as well as Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian bias incidents in the U.S.