A lawsuit from Hamas victims suggests Columbia University activists had advance knowledge of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel and carried out violent protests on the terrorist organization’s behalf.
A group of plaintiffs that includes freed Israeli hostage Shlomi Ziv alleged several anti-Israel groups and their leaders acted as agents and propagandists for Hamas in a Monday lawsuit. The case adds to ongoing legal action against leaders of Columbia University’s April 2024 protest encampment, including Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian who is named in the lawsuit and faces deportation for his role.
The Trump administration arrested Khalil on March 8 and claims it has the authority to deport him because he acted against America’s foreign policy interests by advocating for Hamas at Columbia. A law firm representing him in that case did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“While held hostage, Shlomi’s Hamas captors bragged about having Hamas operatives on American university campuses,” the new lawsuit claims. “In fact, they showed him Al-Jazeera stories and photographs of protests at Columbia University that were organized by [the] Defendants while he was being held hostage.”
The lawsuit also alleges the campus group Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) posted “we are back!!” on a formerly inactive social media account — “three minutes before Hamas began its attack.” The plaintiffs said this shows activists “had prior knowledge of” the invasion, during which Hamas killed more than 1,100 people, raped, tortured and took hundreds of hostages in Israel.
Attorneys also highlighted an SJP document published shortly after Oct. 7 that praised Hamas “resistance” fighters and declared, “We as Palestinian students in exile are part of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement.”
The lawsuit asserts, “Upon information and belief, and based upon statements made to Plaintiff Shlomi Ziv by his Hamas captor, Hamas … provided financial, organizational, and other support to [defendants] for the Encampment.”
SJP’s national branch did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawsuit identifies SJP as a close affiliate of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a group the state of Virginia is investigating over possible ties to terrorists. AMP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The other organizations being sued are Within Our Lifetime, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) and Columbia-Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace, which did not respond to requests for comment.
Khalil protested on behalf of CUAD during the April 2024 encampment that saw rioters taking over a building, vandalizing property, assaulting Jewish students and making threats such as, “Seventh of October is going to be every day for you.” The lawsuit labels Khalil “the de facto president” of CUAD, Columbia SJP and Columbia-Barnard JVP, saying that the latter two groups dissolved into CUAD after Columbia banned them from campus.
Khalil’s wife and legal team claim he is merely pro-Palestinian, not pro-Hamas, an issue central to the government’s push to deport him.
However, Khalil’s CUAD group has repeatedly praised the terrorists for their violence, including when it called Oct. 7 the “crowning achievement” of a deceased Hamas leader.
A video that circulated on social media also appeared to show Khalil defending attacks on Israel at a CUAD meeting. “We’ve tried armed resistance, which is legitimate under international law, but Israel calls it terrorism,” Khalil told his audience.
Columbia student David Lederer told the DCNF he was at the meeting on March 7, 2024 — a month prior to CUAD’s encampment — when Khalil said those words.
“There [should] be no more debate whether Khalil himself supports Hamas,” Lederer said in a March 11 X post showing the video.
As for SJP, national security expert Ryan Mauro told the DCNF it has long been clear that the group is linked to Hamas and that all college campuses should ban it.
“Very few people know that SJP declared itself to be literally a part of Hamas,” said Mauro, who works for the conservative think tank Capital Research Center. “This means you literally have a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization operating on campuses across the country.”
“Would we let ISIS, another designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, do that?” Mauro said.
Monday’s lawsuit alleged that the defendants violated the Antiterrorism Act and called for “punitive damages” to compensate Hamas’s victims.
“This case will finally hold these admitted terrorists accountable for their actions,” attorneys wrote.
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