Protesters on the campus of Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA, celebrate Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel one year later by carrying a banner that reads “Victory to the Palestinian Resistance” alongside paraglider and weapons imagery. (Source: Instagram/Screenshot)
On the grim anniversary of Hamas’s October 7, 2023 terror massacre in southern Israel, when thousands of terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages, anti-Israel student group demonstrations on U.S. campuses again featured extreme pro-terror messages that glorified the attack and sought to disrupt campus life. Some events were marked by vandalism, intimidation and harassment.
On a day when Jewish people around the world were mourning the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, Jewish students and community members were repeatedly confronted with rhetoric that celebrated that violence on the ground and online.
The day’s actions were part of a campus-focused “Week of Rage” endorsed by the national leadership of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) and other prominent anti-Zionist groups ahead of the October 7 anniversary. Monday’s actions also followed widespread off-campus anniversary protests organized by many of those same groups during an “International Day of Action” over the weekend of October 5–6, which was also characterized by significant support for terror.
Student groups on over 100 U.S. campuses sponsored activities on October 7, 2024. At many of these events, protesters’ signs, clothing, flags, chants and speaker comments explicitly venerated Hamas’s deadly attack. For example, many referred to the terror assault using Hamas’s name for it — the “Al Aqsa Flood” — or by characterizing it as a laudable act of liberation or “breaking out of prison.” Other examples included displaying paraglider imagery, a direct reference to Hamas’s use of paragliders to invade southern Israeli communities on October 7, or inverted red triangle imagery, a symbol popularized by Hamas over the past year to mark targets.
At the University of Illinois Chicago, students walked out of classes at noon and gathered to “take over the quad” on campus. A speaker representing the Chicago chapter of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) read from a statement published by the group to celebrate the anniversary of Hamas’s attack: “On October 7, the sound of freedom thundered across Palestine, and its echoes are still being heard around the world. The Palestinian resistance launched Operation Al Aqsa Flood, a mass breakout from the world’s largest open air prison, Gaza. And, in doing so, they took a historic step towards liberation.”
In Philadelphia, anti-Israel protesters from throughout the region gathered at Drexel University for a protest that featured numerous extreme displays of support for terror. This included a banner carried by members of the local FRSO chapter that read, “Victory to the Palestinian Resistance,” alongside gun and paraglider imagery.
Protesters in Philadelphia also flew a flag bearing the logo of the U.S.-designated terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and a flag with an image of Abu Obaida, the spokesperson for the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas’s military wing). Obaida and the Al-Qassam Brigades were also referenced in multiple chants at the protest that called for violence against Israel: “Abu Obaida, love: strike, strike, Tel Aviv” (translated from Arabic) and “Al-Qassam, make us proud; take another soldier now.”
The Philadelphia protest was co-sponsored or endorsed by SJP chapters and other anti-Israel student groups from many local schools, including host Drexel University, Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College, Swarthmore College, Temple University, the University of Pennsylvania and Villanova University. Corresponding chapters of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) from those schools also endorsed the protest.
New York City also saw significant activity, with student groups holding protests at colleges throughout the city and later converging for a joint off-campus rally and march in conjunction with the pro-terror anti-Israel group, Within Our Lifetime (WOL). At Columbia University, protesters carried signs that included an image of Abu Obaida alongside the slogan “Zionism’s end days” and inverted red triangle imagery. Another sign depicted Obaida with the message “Long Live the Al-Aqsa Flood; Glory to the Resistance” alongside paraglider and inverted red triangle imagery.
A speaker praised “the heroic acts by the Palestinian Resistance and its allies in the region” and commented that “Palestinian Resistance remains our guiding light.” Students also chanted, “Resistance is glorious, we will be victorious,” effectively exalting Hamas’s actions on October 7.
Posters displayed at Columbia University in New York, NY, on October 7, 2024, feature images of Hamas spokesperson Abu Obaida alongside paraglider imagery, inverted red triangle imagery, and slogans that celebrate Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel one year earlier. (Source: X/Screenshot)
Student protesters from more than a dozen New York-area schools merged with the off-campus WOL-led protest later in the afternoon that made its way through Lower and Midtown Manhattan. The large march drew thousands of participants and featured significant support for terror in the form of Hamas and Hezbollah flags, signs like the Samidoun-branded “Long Live October 7th” banner also seen at previous NYC protests, and more. Nerdeen Kiswani, a former student activist who leads WOL, shared support for October 7 during her speech and denied reports of Israeli suffering, including accounts from Israeli women who were raped by terrorists during the attack.
At Tulane University in New Orleans, LA, protesters carried signs with messages that included “Long Live Resistance” — in which the two Ls were represented with images of guns — alongside paraglider and inverted red triangle imagery. Slogans and imagery seen at the DePaul University student walkout in Chicago, IL, included a sign with an illustration of notorious PFLP terrorist Leila Khaled alongside the slogan “By any means necessary,” as well as a banner with the message, “It didn’t start on October 7th.”
Some protests escalated into the direct harassment of students and other campus community members. At the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, anti-Israel protesters gathered directly outside of the Minnesota Hillel building while Jewish community members were inside to mourn the October 7 attack; Hillels nationwide have increasingly been the target of anti-Israel protests and activism in the past year.
At Pomona College in California, anti-Israel student protesters from across the Claremont Colleges rallied after walking out of class and then stormed into the Carnegie Hall academic building on campus. The protesters’ actions disrupted classes taking place inside the building and forced students in those classrooms to climb out of windows to leave since they were blocking the doors.
The protesters occupied the building for several hours. While inside, they vandalized the building with graffiti that included the spray-painted messages, “INTIFADA” and “FUCK POMONA.” The action was reminiscent of the destructive escalation tactics employed by anti-Israel student groups on various campuses during the encampment movement in the spring semester of 2024. Later in the day, university officials reported “extensive damage” in Carnegie Hall and announced that the building “will remain closed until further notice, and classes will be relocated.”
Instances of vandalism were reported on numerous other campuses on Monday. At Chapman University in Orange, CA, for example, images of burning Israeli flags were painted on the ground, along with the slogans “F Israel,” “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” The graffiti also featured a threatening message directed at the school’s pro-Israel student group, Students Supporting Israel (SSI), with an inverted red triangle drawn over the text “SSI.” Vandalism incidents also took place Monday at Cal Poly Humboldt, City College of New York, Princeton University, the University of South Florida, the University of Virginia and other schools.
In addition to the on-the-ground activities of anti-Israel protesters on campuses throughout the day, on social media, many student groups also celebrated the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack and affirmed their support for terrorism more broadly. Posts from dozens of groups framed terrorism as praiseworthy “resistance” and terrorists as heroic “freedom fighters.” Many posts featured photographs and related imagery taken directly from the October 7 attack.
Graphics celebrating Hamas’s October 7 attack, posted on social media alongside a longer statement by the Student Committee for Defense and Solidarity (SCDS) at Pennsylvania State University, demonstrated the type of pro-terror messages shared by many anti-Israel student groups to mark the October 7 anniversary. (Source: Instagram/Screenshot)
Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE) at the University of Michigan, for example, published a statement across social media platforms that read: “The October 7th mobilization lives on as a historic act of resistance against the Zionist colonial project. We remain in complete, unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people and their dignified resistance forces. Glory to our martyrs and power to our freedom fighters. May they continue to be victorious over their oppressors.”
Georgia State University SJP posted: “Today we extend our solidarity and unconditional support to the people of Palestine and Lebanon, their brave resistance fighters, and their martyrs.” New Brunswick SJP, which remains active at Rutgers University despite the recent suspension of its status as an officially recognized student group due to campus policy violations, published a statement that opened by commemorating Hamas’s attack: “A year ago today, on October 7th, the Palestinian resistance launched the Al-Aqsa Flood offensive strategy to break out of the 17-year-long open-air prison of the blockaded Gaza Strip.”
Case Western Reserve University SJP and LSJP (Law Students for Justice in Palestine) wrote in a joint statement: “The only tragedy that October 7th commemorates is the start of another genocide against the Palestinian people.” Swarthmore SJP posted, “Happy October 7th!” on Instagram and solicited donations for a fundraiser “in honor of this glorious day and all our martyred revolutionaries.”
University of California, Davis SJP shared Hamas propaganda featuring Abu Obaida, while the University of California, Berkeley YDSA shared PFLP propaganda. The student group Columbia University Apartheid Divest posted a series of photographs celebrating violence against Israelis, including images from October 7 as well as the Ramallah lynching of two Israeli military reservists in 2000 during the Second Intifada.
Numerous other student groups shared similar posts supportive of terror groups, figures, or propaganda across social media platforms.
