Anti-Israel protests break out across NYC, with Columbia, NYU students walking out on Oct. 7 anniversary

Anti-Israel protesters turned out by the hundreds across New York City during the third anniversary of Hamas’ Oct.7 attack Wednesday — with students at NYU and Columbia University calling to “keep the intifada alive” and proclaiming “resistance is justified.”More than 100 people gathered at Washington Square Park for the latest demonstration of the New York University Students for Justice in Palestine’s “Rage Week” aimed at condemning the Israel-Gaza war.The demonstrators — wearing keffiyehs and holding banners calling for NYU to “divest” and shutter its Tel Aviv campus — were heard chanting, “Long live the intifada” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a common rally cry implying the erasure of the Jewish state.“Glory to the martyrs and victory to the resistance.

Intifada intifada!” one member of SJP shouted, calling for the crowd to “keep the intifada alive.”Andrew Ross, a professor at NYU’s American Studies program and part of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, justified Hamas’ bloody invasion on Oct.7, 2023, as a military tactic whose primary purpose was to acquire hostages to free Palestinians held in Israeli jails.While Ross called the day “very tragic,” he went on to spread a conspiracy theory that the Israel Defense Forces killed some of its own citizens during the massacre — in which nearly 1,200 people, including more than 800 civilians, were slaughtered, with many victims also suffering torture and rape at the hands of Hamas fighters.“On October 7th, a mass Hannibal Directive was issued, and for the first time, it applied to civilians, Israeli civilians, and as a result, an untold number of them died at the hands of being targeted by IDF forces in vehicles that were being taken back to Gaza,” Ross claimed as he addressed the crowd.The Hannibal Directive is a controversial procedure used by the IDF to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers by enemy forces at all costs,...