About a dozen people were cuffed as they clashed with NYPD officers during a demonstration in support of former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil on Tuesday afternoon, police said.

Cops swarmed in to make arrests after throngs of protesters blocked a downtown Manhattan street, despite repeated warnings from police to clear the roadway.

One keffiyeh-clad rabble-rouser was tackled to the ground by a pair of officers during his arrest.

“Move, cops, get out the way, we know you’re Israeli-trained,” some protesters taunted during the tense, caught-on-video scene where police blocked protesters from entering City Hall Park. “Oink, oink, piggy, piggy. We’re gonna make your lives s–tty.”

Cops blared a message on a loop warning protesters that if they remained in the roadway, they were going to be arrested and slapped with disorderly conduct charges.

The NYPD said late Tuesday one person was hit with disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration charges and another 11 were issued summonses.

Khalil, at the center of a national firestorm, was detained Saturday by federal authorities and faces the threat of deportation for what the White House said Tuesday was peddling “pro-Hamas” views.

The arrest comes as President Trump has vowed to root out alleged antisemitism by foreign citizens on college campuses, including at Columbia, which has been a hotbed for fiery anti-Israel protests for the past year and a half.

About 350 protesters started out at Washington Square Park earlier Tuesday and marched to Federal Plaza Immigration Court, grinding traffic to a halt multiple times as they chanted anti-Israel slogans and called for Khalil’s freedom.

“There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” protesters crowed as the crowds grew to about 500.

The group was trying to make speeches in front of the federal courthouse in the middle of the street, but was ordered by the NYPD to keep moving. When the protest tried to enter City Hall Park, cops blocked marchers and forced them to turn around before the chaos unfolded.

One tourist visiting from Texas who saw the protest pass by her earlier Tuesday wondered why the protesters were hiding their faces with masks and Palestinian headscarves.

“They’re embarrassed to show who they really are,” Andrea Benatar, 44, told The Post.

“If they’re so proud of freeing Palestine, why not show their faces?

“I’d like them to go and live in Gaza. They clearly have no sympathy for the Jewish people in Israel, including children, who were murdered and kidnapped,” she added.

Police officers also took a man into custody after he got into an argument with a protester.

A demonstrator, Anastacia Symone, 30, claimed the man grabbed a young protester by the throat and took a swing at him.

“I’m here to call for the release of Mahmoud Khalil. He was at home with his family when he was criminalized for expressing his freedom of speech,” Symone said.

Protesters argued that Khalil was targeted because he is the “cornerstone in our community,” calling him a “political prisoner.”

“The Trump administration and the complicit Columbia University believe if they separate us from this key cornerstone of our community, our movement will begin to crumble,” the protesters screamed.

Khalil was being held in Louisiana ahead of a scheduled hearing before a federal judge Wednesday morning to determine the next steps in the highly controversial case.

Khalil has a green card and is married to a US citizen, who is pregnant.

His legal team wants him returned to New York, arguing the federal government is “engaging in blatant efforts to target and chill” their client’s free speech and to “discriminate against particular viewpoints.”