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The Trump administration is continuing its battle against Harvard University — this time, canceling $2.7 million in grants and threatening to stop the enrollment of international students.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday announced the cancellation of two DHS grants to the school, declaring it "unfit to be entrusted with taxpayer dollars."

Noem also said she sent a letter to Harvard demanding "detailed records" on foreign student visa holders’ "illegal and violent activities" by April 30.

If Harvard does not meet that deadline, it’ll immediately lose its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, she warned.

The release alleged Harvard’s foreign visa holders participated in riots and spewed antisemitic hate targeting Jewish students following the Hamas incursion against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

"If Harvard cannot verify it is in full compliance with its reporting requirements, the university will lose the privilege of enrolling foreign students," a DHS news release said.

The two canceled grants were: an $800,303 grant for Implementation Science for Targeted Violence Prevention, which Noem said "branded conservatives as far-right dissidents in a shockingly skewed study," and a $1.9 million Blue Campaign Program Evaluation and Violence Advisement grant that Noem alleged "funded Harvard’s public health propaganda."

"Harvard bending the knee to antisemitism — driven by its spineless leadership — fuels a cesspool of extremist riots and threatens our national security," Noem said in a statement. "With anti-American, pro-Hamas ideology poisoning its campus and classrooms, Harvard’s position as a top institution of higher learning is a distant memory. America demands more from universities entrusted with taxpayer dollars."

An immigration judge has denied bond to Rümeysa Öztürk, her lawyers said Thursday, the latest development in the case of the Tufts University student from Turkey whose arrest on a Massachusetts sidewalk was captured in a viral video.

Öztürk, 30, was on her way to meet friends to break the Ramadan fast on March 25 when she was surrounded and detained by plainclothes immigration agents in Somerville, a Boston suburb. She was then taken to an immigration detention center in Louisiana.

Her lawyers have asked a federal judge in Vermont to order her release as the immigration case plays out. They argue that Öztürk’s student was visa revoked in retaliation for an op-ed she co-wrote for her student newspaper about the war in Gaza.

A group of protesters is planning to set up tent encampments on Columbia University campuses this week in protest of the war in Gaza, according to three people familiar with the planning and a recording of a meeting to plan the action shared with NBC News.

The planned encampments come just over a year after students first erected about 50 tents on a university lawn to protest the war and drew the world's attention.

Planning for the encampments has been shrouded in secrecy.

The coordinating meeting took place at a community center on Tuesday night in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, approximately 12 miles from campus, according to screenshots of Signal messages from organizers and a person who was at the meeting.

Invitations for the meeting were largely distributed in person or verbally over the phone, according to the person who attended the meeting and asked not to be named due to fears of discipline from the school.

More than 100 people were present at the gathering and all wore masks to conceal their identities, according to the person. It is unclear if all of the participants were Columbia students, the person said.

The student organizers did not introduce speakers by name and instead used Signal usernames and code names — including the beloved Pokémon “Squirtle” and words such as “butterfly” — to distinguish one another, according to the recording.

Organizers have also refrained from referring to the upcoming encampments as "encampments," according to screenshots of Signal messages from the organizers and conversations with two people familiar with the planning for the protests. In writing, and verbally, participants have designated the encampments with a code name, the “circus."

Organizers asked demonstrators not to arrive on campus wearing masks on the days of the protests, which they said could alert campus security officers, according to the recording.

“This year feels so much more organized and careful,” the person who was at the meeting said.

Students are planning to erect an encampment on Thursday at the university's main campus in Manhattan's Morningside Heights neighborhood and a second encampment on Friday at the university's nearby Manhattanville campus, according to the recording.

"When we take over the lawn, our goal is to unify the space and make it our own," one of the organizers said, according to the recording.

Thursday’s encampment was planned to start at 1 p.m. on the West Butler Lawn of the university’s main campus, where encampments were set up last year, according to the recording, and disperse before nightfall or before police enter the campus.

There will be a second encampment that is expected to be more robust and begin the next day. It is unclear when the Friday encampment will begin, but according to the recording, students plan to stay indefinitely and expect arrests to be made.

Organizers chose to stage Friday's encampment at the Manhattanville campus — the site of the university's business school — because it is not gated off to outsiders, unlike the main campus, according to a person who attended the meeting.

A speaker at the meeting also said that the site of the second encampment was aimed at protesting the university's gentrification of Harlem, according to the recording.

"Any action that we do will bring police, will bring repression and we thought about that deeply and we're aware of that," a speaker at the meeting said to applause. "And we're stuck in this situation where inaction is also violence."

Organizers of the upcoming protests have distributed several guidelines, obtained by NBC News, to student protesters. These guidelines cover legal risks associated with protesting, best practices for encounters with law enforcement and strategies for securing their digital presence.

The document on digital security advises that students communicate only through encrypted messaging services such as Signal, over the phone, or in person. It also suggests that students turn off Wi-Fi on their phones while protesting to avoid being traced by the university.

Another form shared by the organizers and obtained by NBC News asks students to provide "all the information necessary to support your legal defense" for their emergency contacts in the event of arrest.

It asks for student protesters to list any medical conditions, insurance information, prescriptions, if they have dependents, where their government IDs are, their address and how emergency contacts can access their apartments or homes.

"Given the Trump Administration’s commitment to pursuing federal action against pro-Palestine protestors and the abduction of our comrade Mahmoud Khalil, we are now asking students to prepare not only for potential arrest and jail for several hours or overnight, but for the possibility of prolonged jail time," the form reads. "Give serious thought to the question of how you would prepare for weeks or months in jail."

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked officials from moving a Palestinian student from Columbia University who was taken into custody during his naturalization interview in Vermont.

U.S. District Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford extended a previous temporary restraining order that keeps the student, Mohsen Mahdawi, in the state, where he is a resident. Mahdawi is being held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Vermont.

Lawyers for Mahdawi, a pro-Palestinian activist, had filed a motion for his release, arguing that he is not a flight risk.

“Mr. Mahdawi has deep community ties, a long history of being actively invested in the peace process, and nearly 80 individuals who can attest to his character,” the filing said.

However, Crawford declined to rule whether the federal government can continue to detain Mahdawi, or whether the court has jurisdiction over his habeas petition challenging his detention. The judge set a hearing for next week, at which he could decide to release him.

Mahdawi, who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank and is a U.S. permanent resident, was taken into custody last week by armed agents from the Department of Homeland Security.

Mahdawi walked into what he thought was the “final stage” of the long pathway to citizenship, raising his right hand, answering questions and signing a document that “he was willing to defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America,” his attorneys said in court filings.

“It was a trap. At approximately 12:00 P.M., the USCIS official informed Mr. Mahdawi that he needed to ‘check’ on some information and would be right back,” the court filings said. “ICE agents, masked and visibly armed, entered the interview room and shackled Mr. Mahdawi.”

The head of Harvard University doubled down on his defiance against the Trump administration Wednesday, saying the Ivy League school would not compromise on certain issues despite the federal government’s threat to freeze more than $2 billion in funding.

In an exclusive interview with NBC News' Lester Holt, Harvard President Alan Garber said the school had “no choice” but to fight back against what it believes is federal overreach and an illegal attempt by the government to withhold funding as leverage to control academic decision-making.

“We are defending what I believe is one of the most important lynchpins of the American economy and way of life — our universities,” Garber said.

In a letter on April 11, the Trump administration outlined a list of “critical reforms” it wanted Harvard to make to keep $2.2 billion in grants. The reforms included allowing the government to audit whom the school hires and admits for at least the next three years.

When Harvard rejected the demands, the administration said it would freeze the funding, citing the school’s unwillingness to seriously address antisemitism and the harassment of Jewish students.

Harvard sued the federal government on Monday to halt the funding freeze.

Speaking about the issue for the first time on Wednesday, Garber said the lawsuit was necessary to protect the school’s independence and constitutional rights, as well as the future of higher education in the United States.

“We will not compromise on certain issues,” said Garber, the head of Harvard since 2024. “We’ve made that very clear.”

Garber acknowledged that the Massachusetts campus has a “real problem” with antisemitism amid a war between Israel and Hamas that began after the group attacked Israel in October 2023.

In its lawsuit, Harvard outlined steps it has taken to curb incidents of antisemitism, including imposing "meaningful discipline" for policy violators, beefing up security, enhancing programs meant to address bias and hiring staff to support those programs.

Garber, who is Jewish, said the antisemitism issue has nothing to do with the research that the federal grants fund.

The research now at risk includes efforts to improve the prospects of children who survive cancer, to understand at the molecular level how cancer spreads throughout the body, to predict the spread of infectious disease outbreaks, and to ease the pain of soldiers wounded on the battlefield, he said.

“Putting that research at jeopardy because of claims of antisemitism seems to us to be misguided,” Garber said. “The effort to address antisemitism will not be advanced by shutting off funding.”

He added that nearly all federal funding is directed toward the research the government has deemed high-priority.

Even if there is a short pause in funding, Garber said there are long-lasting consequences to the research. In some cases, he said it would be impossible to pick the projects back up.

There is so much at stake,” he said. “People leave their jobs. We have patients whose treatment in clinical trials might be interrupted. Animals that are used in research sometimes cannot continue to be maintained when the funding stops.”

Garber said he is “very concerned about Harvard’s future” and the partnership between the federal government and research universities that he said has improved lives and has made the U.S. a “technological powerhouse.”

“That partnership has been responsible over the decades for dramatic innovation in science and technology,” he said.

The White House on Wednesday defended its position and actions.

"The real threat to higher education comes when places like Harvard let their students’ civil rights get trampled in a spineless attempt to coddle pro-Hamas activists,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement. “President Trump is standing up for every student denied an education or safe campus because left-wing universities fail to protect their civil rights. Colleges are hooked on federal cash, and Mr. Garber’s public outburst only fuels the push to shut off the taxpayer money propping up their institution.”

An R&B singer who said, “F— Israel” has been disinvited from performing at Cornell University’s end-of-semester concert following outcry from Jewish students.

After a student board announced on April 10 that the singer, Kehlani, would headline the school’s annual “Slope Day” concert, the student group Cornellians for Israel called on the school to rescind the pick. Initially, Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff told students that it was “too late” to secure another performer and that the school had altered her contract to mitigate any political displays.

But in an email to the Cornell community this morning, Kotlikoff announces that Kehlani’s performance has been canceled.

“In the days since Kehlani was announced, I have heard grave concerns from our community that many are angry, hurt, and confused that Slope Day would feature a performer who has espoused antisemitic, anti-Israel sentiments in performances, videos, and on social media,” Kotlikoff, who is Jewish, wrote in an email. “While any artist has the right in our country to express hateful views, Slope Day is about uniting our community, not dividing it.”

An alternative lineup for the event has not been announced, but Kotlikoff said that the school would “revise the process for researching and selecting performers” moving forward.

Kehlani released a music video last June that flashes the message “Long Live the Intifada,” a reference to two Palestinian uprisings against Israel, the latter of which killed an estimated 1,000 people. The previous month, in a video on X, she condemned other artists for staying silent on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying, “It’s f— Israel, it’s f— Zionism, and it’s also f— a lot of y’all too.”

The controversy surrounding the artist’s upcoming performance comes as Cornell is poised to lose $1 billion in federal funding from the Trump administration, ostensibly over its handling of campus antisemitism.

Rates of antisemitic incidents have experienced a “sharp decline” across the world more than a year after Oct. 7, 2023, according to the author of a new study from Tel Aviv University.

The study of global antisemitism, published this week, noted that the number of incidents decreased in many countries in 2024, including France, Britain, Germany, Mexico and South Africa, although rates broadly remain higher than they were before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the outbreak of the war in Gaza.

“Contrary to popular belief, the report’s findings indicate that the wave of antisemitism did not steadily intensify due to the war in Gaza and the humanitarian disaster there,” said Uriya Shavit, the report’s chief editor, in a press release. “The peak was in October-December 2023, and a year later, a sharp decline in the number of incidents was noted almost everywhere.”

The study was conducted by Tel Aviv University’s Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry and the Irwin Cotler Institute for Democracy, Human Rights and Justice. It collected tallies of antisemitic incidents in 2024 from “dozens of police departments, specialized agencies and organizations that monitor and combat antisemitism, Jewish communities, Jewish leaders, and media organizations,” which often employ differing standards and definitions of antisemitism.

Despite the overall downward trend, in some countries, including Australia and Italy, there was a notable spike in the number of antisemitic incidents, the report said. In Australia last year, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, there were 1,713 antisemitic incidents, compared to 1,200 in 2023. Italy saw 877 antisemitic incidents in 2024, compared to 454 in 2023, according to a Jewish watchdog group.

Report published in the same week as Anti-Defamation League report
The report was published the same week as another study of antisemitism in the United States by the Anti-Defamation League that reported 9,354 antisemitic incidents across the country, marking a 5% increase from the previous year.

The ADL found that the spike in the United States was partially attributable to an 84% spike in campus antisemitism after a year that saw widespread pro-Palestinian protests at universities. More than half of the total incidents counted were related to Israel or Zionism.

The Tel Aviv University report also discussed hate crime enforcement by local police departments and found that in Chicago in 2023, 10% of antisemitic incidents resulted in arrests. In Toronto, 6% of anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2023 resulted in arrest, and London had an arrest rate of 4% over the same period. In New York City between 2021 and 2023, about a third of antisemitic incidents resulted in arrests.

Protesters did not set up new tent encampments or demonstrate against the war in Gaza at Columbia University on Thursday as planned.

NBC News reported Wednesday that a group planned to set up tent encampments on the New York City school's main campus Thursday afternoon.

It is unclear whether the encampment planned for Friday will proceed.

Instead of protests Thursday, the scene on campus included students enjoying one of the first warm days in New York City this spring. Dozens of students lay out beach towels, snapped selfies under the sun and tossed around Frisbees.

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies executed search warrants the morning of April 23 at homes in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Canton.

The Michigan Attorney General's Office said the raids are part of a vandalism investigation but a lawyer who spoke to several people whose homes were raided insisted they were targeted for their pro-Palestinian activism.

"Everyone who was raided has taken part in protest and has some relationship to the University of Michigan," said Liz Jacob, an attorney with the Sugar Law Center in Detroit, which is representing several protesters who say they've been effectively banned from campus. "We are totally convinced that, but for their viewpoints, these students would not have been targeted."

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's Office obtained the warrants. Office spokesman Danny Wimmer denied the homes were targeted because of protests.

"Our search warrants were not related to protest activity on the campus of the University of Michigan nor the Diag encampment," Wimmer said in a statement to the Free Press. "Today's search warrants are in furtherance of our investigation into multijurisdictional acts of vandalism."

He noted that "there is no immigration enforcement angle to the execution of these search warrants."

Jacob said the warrants were signed by Judge Michelle Friedman Appel.

Appel is chief judge in Oak Park District Court, whose jurisdiction includes Huntington Woods, where U-M Regent Jordan Acker, who is Jewish, lives.

In December, vandals spray-painted antisemitic graffiti on his car and smashed a window of his home while Acker and his family slept inside. Last June, vandals spray-painted obscenities and anti-Israel graffiti across the entrance to the Goodman Acker law firm in Southfield, using wording that leaders of the firm said was antisemitic, targeting Acker, the firm's senior partner.

Last month, vandals attacked the Ann Arbor home of U-M Provost Laurie McCauley, breaking a window and spray-painting pro-Palestine graffiti.

In May 2024, protesters paid an early morning visit to the home of another regent, Sarah Hubbard, who lives outside of Lansing. They taped a list of demands to her door, left body bags on her lawn, chanted slogans and posted a video of the protest online.

Jacob said seven people were targeted in the April 23 raids. She said several of them are current U-M students and they were awakened early in the morning when police arrived with search warrants. She said several people were detained briefly while police searched their residences and confiscated cellphones and laptop computers.

No arrests were made.

Detroit FBI office spokesman Jordan Hall confirmed his agency was present in Ypsilanti, but declined to elaborate on the reason, saying only it was for "law enforcement activity."

It's unclear why the FBI would be involved in a vandalism complaint.

"It really sounds like multijurisdictional vandalism is a euphemism for the Attorney General cooperating with the Trump administration to target pro-Palestine protesters," Jacob said.

Two anti-Israel activists were wrestled to the ground after they ran onto the London Marathon route Sunday to disrupt the event and protest ties between Israel and the United Kingdom.
A marathon staffer intervened and wrestled the two Youth Demand activists away from the path of the marathoners, after they jumped the barriers and threw red powder at the Tower Bridge, according to a Metropolitan Police X/Twitter post. Police officers arrested the protesters on suspicion of causing a public nuisance.

The Met assured the public that the red chalk-based powder would not present a hazard to runners.

The British non-violent environmental and political activist group said in a statement that the activists called for a “full trade embargo” on Israel amid the war in Gaza, and for reparations by oil and gas companies to countries and communities harmed by climate change.

Kneecap, the Irish band that performed an anti-Israel act at Coachella, is under investigation by UK counterterrorism police following a report filed by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), the organization stated on Thursday.

In a statement on its website, UKLFI said Kneecap’s recent performance at Coachella “whipped up anti-Israel hatred amongst the crowd,” as they led their fans with anti-Israel chants.

“This behavior was particularly egregious at a music festival,” the organization said, “given that hundreds of young Israelis were brutally murdered, raped and tortured at a similar music festival on October 7, 2023.”

During their Coachella set, Kneecap projected a series of political messages, including accusations of genocide against Israel, condemnation of US military support for Israel, and the phrase, “F*** Israel. Free Palestine.”

Showing support for Hamas after October 7
The band also posted a message of support for Gaza on October 8, 2023, just one day after Hamas's attack on Israel. They shared a photo of themselves standing beneath a Palestinian flag with the caption: “Solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.”

In response to the band’s actions, UKLFI said it had written to all UK venues where Kneecap is scheduled to perform this summer, warning them about the risks associated with hosting the group.

A UKLFI spokesperson said: “This band appears to enjoy courting controversy. However, if this involves support for terrorists as well as whipping up anti-Israel hatred amongst its audience, then they should be aware that they are not above the law.”

Hundreds of protesters gathered at Central Park in New York City on Sunday, calling for the release of the 59 hostages who have been held captive in Gaza for 569 days.

Among those attending were relatives of the hostages, including the parents of Itay Chen, the brother of Evyatar David, the brother-in-law of Omri Miran, and the aunt of released hostage Abigail Idan.

Israel’s under-23 fencing team won a gold medal at the European Championships in Estonia on Saturday, but joy over the victory was quickly marred when the Swiss team they defeated turned their backs during the Israeli national anthem.

The protest drew condemnation from Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who panned the Swiss for “disrespectful behavior” and being sore losers.

The Swiss Fencing Federation said it would probe the incident.

Israel’s team of Alon Sarid, Fyodor Khaperski, Yonatan Masika, and Itamar Tavor beat the Swiss 45–34 to take the gold medal. It was a remarkable achievement for the Israelis, who were ranked seventh at the start of the contest.

However, when the Israeli national anthem “Hatikvah” played, the Israeli team and bronze medalists turned sideways to face the flags, while the Swiss fencers — Yan Auri, Theo Broshar, Yonatan Fohriman, and Sven Vines — remained looking straight ahead.

Sarid said that though the teams shook hands before the contest, after the final ended “some avoided us,” in remarks quoted by the Ynet news site.

He said the Israeli team members was only made aware of the Swiss protest after the ceremony when they saw photos of the incident.

Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi is free on bail after a judge ordered his release from federal immigration custody Wednesday, weeks after armed DHS agents detained him in Vermont during his naturalization interview.

Mahdawi, a 34-year-old U.S. permanent resident who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, was detained April 14 and had been held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, the Northwest State Correctional Facility, in St. Albans, Vermont.

"I am saying it clear and loud to President Trump and his Cabinet: I am not afraid of you," Mahdawi said Wednesday outside the Vermont courthouse after his release.

What we are witnessing now and what we’re understanding is exactly what Dr. Martin Luther King has said before: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," he added.

From the bench, U.S. District Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford ordered the release of Mahdawi from prison on bail, pending the resolution of his habeas petition.

The government requested that Crawford pause Mahdawi's release from prison for seven days by issuing a stay of the order, but the judge denied it.

Following Wednesday's hearing, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin issued a statement stating that the judge would not prevent the Trump administration from "restoring the rule of law to our immigration system."

"It is a privilege to be granted a visa or green card to live and study in the United States of America," she said. "When you advocate for violence, glorify and support terrorists that relish the killing of Americans, and harass Jews, that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country."

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mahdawi, who has a green card, was a key organizer of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia last year.

Before Wednesday morning’s hearing in Vermont, the government and Mahdawi's attorneys filed multiple court documents over his release, many of which were filed under seal but reviewed by NBC News.

In the government’s opposition to releasing Mahdawi, it said that law enforcement records indicated that Mahdawi has admitted "to being involved in and supporting antisemitic acts of violence" and "an interest in and facility with firearms for that purpose," according to court documents reviewed by NBC News.

The government included two exhibits with their filing, which have been filed under seal. One of the exhibits, which NBC News has reviewed, is a 2015 report from the Windsor Police Department in Vermont, where a gun shop owner told officers that Mahdawi "supposedly told" the owner that he used to build machine guns "to kill Jews while he was in Palestine."

In his declaration, Mahdawi said that he recalled visiting a gun shop in Windsor, Vermont, but that he is "absolutely certain that I never expressed the words the report falsely attributes to me, in that exchange or ever."

"I am a peaceful person, and would never express wanting to harm or kill anyone," he wrote. "I am heartbroken to have such appalling words, which stand in complete contrast to my philosophy on life and spiritual beliefs, misattributed to me.”

Addressing reporters outside the courthouse, Mahdawi's attorneys claimed victory against what they described as "the government's retaliation" against Mahdawi's right to free speech.

"Their claims and actions are baseless, without evidence, and are a disgrace to the U.S. Constitution," said Luna Droubi, a partner at Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP. "We will keep fighting until Mohsen is free for good."

Mahdawi grew up in al-Fara, a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank, where much of his family remains, according to a court filing. When he was 15 years old, he was shot in the leg by an Israeli soldier, the document states. He came to the U.S. more than a decade ago before enrolling at Columbia in 2021, according to the filing.

On March 8, immigration authorities detained Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who helped lead student protests against the war in Gaza at the school last year, at his New York apartment. A judge ruled on April 11 that the Trump administration can deport Khalil, but Khalil has been permitted to fight the ruling while in detention in the U.S.

DHS agents similarly apprehended Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, who previously co-wrote an essay about Israel and the war in Gaza, off a Boston suburban street in March.

Outside the courthouse Wednesday, Mahdawi called for their freedom.

"Keep in mind that, yes, you might think I am free, but my freedom is interlinked to the freedom of many other students, including Rümeysa Öztürk and Mahmoud Khalil," he said."

Mahdawi also called for an end to the war in Gaza and the U.S. aid to Israel.

"We must stand up for humanity because the rest of the world, not only Palestine, is watching us," Mahdawi said. "And what is going to happen in America is going to affect the rest of the world."

Columbia graduate student and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil can argue in federal court that he was detained and targeted for deportation because of his political views, a judge ruled Tuesday, in what his legal team called an important step in establishing his freedom.

New Jersey District Judge Michael Farbiarz said in a 108-page ruling that he would retain jurisdiction over the case, rejecting the Trump administration's argument that the Immigration and Nationality Act prevented the federal court from reviewing Khalil’s claims.

"Immigration courts are not legally permitted to provide the relief ... that the Petitioner [Khalil] seeks here," the judge wrote, explaining that immigration court would not be the correct forum to hear a case based on freedom of speech.

An Illinois man was sentenced on Friday to 53 years behind bars for the racially motivated killing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy and attacking his mom, days after the Israel-Hamas war erupted in 2023.

Wearing a red jail uniform and appearing thin and frail, 73-year-old Joseph Czuba heard, what amounted to a likely life sentence for murder and attempted murder, from Will County Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak.

A jury in February found the landlord Czuba guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated battery and hate crimes for the Oct. 14, 2023, killing of Wadee Alfayoumi, whose family were tenants of the murderer.

Czuba was sentenced to 30 years for killing Wadee, who was stabbed 26 times.

Czuba also wounded the boy’s mother, Hanan Shaheen, whom he stabbed more than a dozen times in the Chicago suburb of Plainfield Township.

In addition to the 30 years for Wadee's killing, Zauba was hit with a 20-year sentence for attacking the boy's mother and an additional 3-year term for a hate crime. All of the sentences are set to run consecutively.

Czuba declined to speak on his own behalf on Friday.

The jury deliberated for just over an hour.

The mother and son rented two rooms from Czuba and his then-wife in Plainfield Township, about 40 miles southwest of downtown Chicago, where the attack took place.

Shaheen, 33, testified that Czuba, 73, turned on her shortly after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. She said he and his then-wife were aware that she is Muslim and of Palestinian descent before they agreed to rent the rooms to her, and that she didn’t have any issues in the two years she rented from them. She was the prosecution’s first witness.

Shaheen and Czuba’s ex-wife, Mary Connor, who also testified for the prosecution, said that in the week leading up to the stabbings, Czuba was outraged about the war between Israel and Hamas. Shaheen said he began speaking hatefully about Muslims. Shaheen testified that Czuba told her “your people” are killing Jewish people and babies in Israel, that Muslims were not welcome in his home and that she needed to move out.

“I told him, ‘Pray for peace,’” Shaheen testified.

Days later, Shaheen said, Czuba forced his way into her room, held her down, stabbed her with a knife and tried to break her teeth, as her son, Wadee, watched in fear. At one point, she said, she was able to get ahold of the knife and stab Czuba before he seized it from her.

She said that when she went into a bathroom to call 911, Czuba moved on to Wadee, who had just celebrated his birthday. She said she could hear him shouting, “Oh no, stop!”

A knife with a 7-inch blade, which prosecutors held up to show jurors multiple times during closing arguments, was still lodged in Wadee’s body when first responders arrived and was later removed. Shaheen was hospitalized and received 19 stitches on her face, as well as staples on the back of her head.

“This happened because this defendant was afraid that a war that had started on Oct. 7, 2023, a half a world away in the Middle East, was going to come to his doorstep,” Prosecutor Michael Fitzgerald, a Will County assistant state’s attorney, told jurors in his opening statement. “This happened because Hanan and Wadee were Muslim.”

Connor, the ex-wife, testified that Czuba had become paranoid about his personal safety and believed that their lives might be in danger because of Shaheen. She said that they both had a good relationship with Shaheen, whom she said she considered a friend and good tenant. Czuba tried to make the home enjoyable and would sometimes bring home toys for Wadee, she said. Days after the Hamas attack, Czuba became withdrawn and told her that he wanted Shaheen to move out of their home, she said.

“Hanan needs to move because her friends could come and do us harm,” Connor testified Czuba had told her.

But Connor, who was married to Czuba for 30 years, said she disagreed. She believed they should adhere to the terms of Shaheen’s lease, and give her 30 days notice to move, and told Czuba that Shaheen had never had a guest in the home.

“I was angry,” Connor testified. “In my mind, there was no reason for her to move.”

She said Czuba also talked of an upcoming “day of jihad” and withdrew $1,000 from his bank account because of fears the U.S. banking system would fail.

Prosecutors played for jurors a conversation between Czuba and a Will County sheriff’s sergeant, in which Czuba compared Wadee and Shaheen to “infested rats.”

“What do you do when you have an infested rat situation? You exterminate them. And that’s what he did that day,” prosecutor Chris Koch said in his closing argument Friday. “That was his thought process.”

In his closing argument, George Lenard, one of Czuba’s attorneys, invoked O.J. Simpson’s trial attorney Johnnie Cochran, telling jurors that there had been a rush to judgment in Czuba’s case.

Lenard also questioned why Shaheen retreated to the bathroom, the location of some of her wounds and the evidence from the scene, and he appeared to suggest that Shaheen had a financial interest in the case, something he tried to question her about under cross-examination. Shaheen filed a wrongful death suit against Czuba and his ex-wife that is still pending.

“You know this is a half-baked case that the prosecution is giving you,” he said.

He urged the jurors to “have the courage” to find Czuba not guilty.

Prosecutor Christine Vukmir rebutted his argument, calling the suggestion that Shaheen stabbed Wadee and then framed Czuba “outlandish.”

“That is the plot that he is presenting to you,” she told jurors. “It is ridiculous.”

Czuba was found on the ground outside when deputies arrived at the house.

Jurors heard from police officers, firefighters and other first responders, as well as from a physician assistant who treated Shaheen at a hospital. They also heard Shaheen’s 911 call to police, in which Wadee’s cries could be heard and she repeatedly told the dispatcher, “He is killing my baby.”

One of the Will County sheriff’s deputies who found Wadee’s body cried on the stand as jurors watched footage from her body-worn camera. Some of the footage and images were so graphic during the trial that Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak granted a defense request that the courtroom television monitor be turned away from the gallery, where members of Wadee’s family sat during the trial, so that only the jurors could see it.

Wadee’s father, Odai Alfayoumi, said at the Will County courthouse in Joliet that he felt “like this decision came a little too late.”

“I don’t know if I should be pleased or upset, if I should be crying or laughing,” he said in Arabic through a translator. “People are telling me to smile. Maybe if I were one of you, I would be smiling. But I’m the father of the child, and I’ve lost a child.”

“I pray that this loss, this senseless loss, is the last that we will see, that no child would suffer what my beloved little Wadee had to go through,” he continued.

Ahmed Rehab, the executive director of CAIR Chicago, who translated his remarks, said Shaheen was not present when the verdict was announced because it was too difficult, but she wanted him to relay that she prays only for peace and love.

President Donald Trump said Friday that he will revoke Harvard University's tax-exempt status, the latest move in the escalating clash between the administration and the Ivy League school.

"We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!" Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Responding to Trump's announcement Friday, Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton said that the government has "long exempted universities from taxes in order to support their educational mission" and that there was no legal basis to rescind its status.

"The tax exemption means that more of every dollar can go toward scholarships for students, lifesaving and life-enhancing medical research, and technological advancements that drive economic growth," he said.

Newton added that revoking the university's tax-exempt status "would endanger our ability to carry out our educational mission."

"It would result in diminished financial aid for students, abandonment of critical medical research programs, and lost opportunities for innovation," he continued. "The unlawful use of this instrument more broadly would have grave consequences for the future of higher education in America.”

In its lawsuit, Harvard accused the Trump administration of violating the First Amendment and other laws and regulations after it paused $2.2 billion in grants. The school called on a federal judge to declare the move unconstitutional and order the government to reinstate the fund

Harvard University’s president has apologized for the campus climate over the last year and a half, in a letter accompanying a long-awaited report from a university task force on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias.

The task force found that Jewish and Israeli students at Harvard experienced pervasive “shunning” and were relentlessly targeted for their identities by both peers and faculty in the days and months after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, according to the report, released Tuesday.

The 311-page report lands 16 months after the committee first formed — and days after the Trump administration publicly called for its release. The school also published a parallel report, authored by a task force Garber convened on Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian bias. The two groups jointly collected nearly 2,300 responses to a campus climate survey, with the antisemitism task force also conducting listening sessions with around 500 Jews on campus.

The detailed reports (the Islamophobia one runs 222 pages) arrive as the Ivy League school is locked in a fierce legal battle with the White House, which has pulled billions of dollars in federal funding to the university, citing its failure to manage antisemitism. In response, Harvard has sued the administration, which has also threatened to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status.

The school delayed the reports’ release amid the sparring, according to the Crimson, the student newspaper; a Harvard representative declined to comment on the reports’ timing to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Task force co-chair Derek Penslar, director of Harvard’s Jewish Studies program, also declined to comment.

Garber praised both reports’ release in an accompanying letter to the campus community, in which he promised to establish “a research project on antisemitism” as well as “support a comprehensive historical analysis of Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians at Harvard.” He also pledged to review school disciplinary policies and find new ways to promote “viewpoint diversity.”

'No other group was told their history was a sham'
The antisemitism and anti-Israel task force report paints a sobering portrait of the campus climate for Jewish and Israeli students.

“No other group was constantly told that their history was a sham, that they or their co-religionists or co-ethnics were supremacists and oppressors, and that they had no right to the protections offered by anti-bias norms,” reads one section. “Many Jewish students told us they feel like objects of suspicion.”

The task force focuses only on the 2023-24 school year, a time period when Harvard became a central flashpoint of post-October 7 campus controversies, and does not detail the school’s recent fights with Trump. Its authors, a mix of Harvard faculty, students and staff — as well as the director of Harvard Hillel for most of the period — urge the university to take a series of actions, going further than similar task force reports at other universities in advocating for wholesale change.

Those changes include more rigorous oversight of school centers, programs and courses on subjects such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to avoid “politicized instruction”; revamping admissions to prioritize students willing to do “bridge-building” and face “diverging viewpoints”; and expanding the school’s roster of classes on antisemitism, Judaism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The report opens with an anecdote of a Jewish student who was told by peers that they could not present their grandparents’ Holocaust survival narrative at a student forum, because the family had emigrated to Israel. “They told me my family history was inherently one-sided because it does not acknowledge the displacements of Palestinian populations,” the student recalled.

The task force goes on to depict the post-October 7 climate at Harvard as one that frequently sought to lay the blame for Israel’s actions in Gaza at the feet of the school’s Jewish and, especially, Israeli students — both inside and outside of the classroom. In the joint task force surveys, Jewish Harvard students were twice as likely as non-Jewish, non-Muslim peers to feel “unwelcome and unsafe” (though Muslim students reported “greater negative experiences” on campus than Jewish students).

And amid what the authors described as increased polarization and more aggressive campus protests than in generations past, they noted, “Harvard lacks relevant courses and programming to address the campus climate and discuss events in Israel/Palestine in a constructive, informed, and non-threatening way.”

One section of the report is devoted to the failures of staff and faculty at different Harvard schools to foster a welcoming environment for Jewish and Israeli students, including criticism of “politicized instruction that mainstreamed and normalized what many Jewish and Israeli students experience as antisemitism and anti-Israel bias.”

“We urge the university and its schools to take on the mantle of moral leadership in the fight against antisemitism and anti-Israel bias,” the report reads at one point. “We are deeply concerned that these forms of bigotry are becoming increasingly normalized in academia.”

The report also spends many pages setting up a broader historical context for the presence of Jews, antisemitism, and pro-Palestinian organizing on Harvard’s campus. The authors note the experiences of Harvard’s Jewish students following the end of its anti-Jewish quotas. They also document a shift over the last few decades from a brand of on-campus pro-Palestinian protest that sometimes sought to break bread with pro-Israel students, to one that focused on “shunning” them from public spaces and “appears to view bridge-building activities as a form of betrayal.”

A small number of anti-Zionist Jewish students also told the task force they felt discriminated against at Jewish organizations serving the campus, including Hillel and Chabad, due to their views on Israel.

The parallel Islamophobia task force’s report, meanwhile, includes testimony from pro-Palestinian Jewish students. One who identifies as “a Jew with an Israeli parent” chastises Harvard for “bend[ing] over backwards to represent the views of the Zionist members of your community at the expense of those Jews in the diaspora who oppose the colonial project.”

The latter report also criticizes Harvard for not doing more to protect students from doxxing, including the presence of pro-Israel “doxxing trucks” that drove through campus projecting images of students the truck called “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.”

Survey respondents for the Islamophobia report also said they felt “apprehension” when Harvard adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which includes some forms of Israel criticism, as part of a recent lawsuit settlement. Muslim and pro-Palestinian students feared the move would “suppress pro-Palestinian protest by conflating criticism of Israeli policies with antisemitism.”

Side by side, the two reports reflect an often yawning gulf in how their respective communities viewed both the current and historic campus climate. The Islamophobia report criticized Harvard for cancelling pro-Palestinian campus events, while the antisemitism report said that, historically, the school has prioritized pro-Palestinian voices and de-emphasized pro-Israel ones when programming events around the conflict.

Yet they also attempted to reach consensus, with a shared “Pluralism Subcommittee” issuing joint recommendations to address both problems, including one to establish an “institutional anchor for practices of pluralism on campus.”

An anti-boycott, divestment and sanctions bill scheduled for a vote on Monday has been pulled from the US Congress after severe backlash from several “America First” Republican lawmakers and social media podcasters.

“I’m told we are no longer voting on this. It’s been pulled,” Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X on Monday, in reference to the bill that particularly targets Israel.

Congressman Thomas Massie, a libertarian Republican who is critical of Israel’s influence on Capitol Hill, also confirmed the bill "has been pulled from the schedule for this week”.

The bill, dubbed the International Governmental Organization (IGO) Anti-Boycott Act, would effectively criminalise boycotting Israel.

It was drafted by Republican Mike Lawler and Democrat Josh Gottheimer in January, and co-sponsored by 22 other lawmakers from the Republican and Democratic parties.

The legislation was slammed by both free speech activists and pro-Palestinian organisations, uniting various constituencies that would otherwise find themselves on opposite sides of US domestic issues.

“It is my job to defend Americans’ rights to buy or boycott whomever they choose without the government harshly fining them or imprisoning them,” Greene wrote on X on Sunday ahead of the vote.

“But what I don’t understand is why we are voting on a bill on behalf of other countries and not the President’s executive orders that are FOR OUR COUNTRY???” She added.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) also denounced the bill as a “threat” to “First Amendment free speech rights".

"The right to boycott is an intrinsic part of the First Amendment and a cornerstone of American democracy - from resisting British colonial rule to supporting civil rights and opposing apartheid in South Africa. That right must not be infringed,” Cair said.

Under the sweeping bill, US citizens, businesses and organisations could face civil penalties, criminal fines of up to $1m, and potentially imprisonment of up to 20 years for aligning with internationally backed calls to boycott Israel.

Progressive Democratic lawmakers opposed the bill, but for political watchers, the more interesting opposition emerged within the Republican Party and among fervent supporters of President Trump.

Charlie Kirk, an influential conservative media personality, on Sunday launched a campaign against the bill on X, saying the “right to speak freely is the birthright of all Americans”.

Steve Bannon, the former Trump advisor whose podcast War Room has become required listening to those trying to discern Trump’s America First world view, also supported Kirk and Green’s remarks against the bill.

For decades, Republicans have been stalwart supporters of Israel, maintaining their vocal support even as progressive democrats became more critical.

Although the anti-boycott bill galvanised free speech advocates, the response from conservative personalities reflects a growing trend in the US to view Israel with scepticism, which has intensified since the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel, which sparked the Israeli invasion of Gaza and a simmering Middle East war.

According to a Pew poll published in April, 53 percent of Americans now express an unfavourable opinion of Israel, up from 42 percent in March 2022.

The deep scepticism of Israel among Trump allies has been playing out in the podcast space. Last month, conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson hosted media personality Matt Walsh for a discussion where the two talked briefly about whether Israel should “exist” as a country if it has to rely on US military support.

The shift in negative sentiment on Israel has been notable among young Republicans under 50, who are more likely to tune into podcasts like Carlson's and be motivated by free speech concerns and the disbursement of foreign aid.

The University of Washington reported pro-Palestinian protesters caused more than $1 million in damage to the university’s Interdisciplinary Engineering Building during a violent demonstration Monday night.

The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office told KOMO News on Tuesday it was aware of 31 people who were arrested and booked into the King County jail in connection with the protest and occupation of the engineering building on the UW campus. The university said it was assessing the extent of the damage and working with law enforcement to address the situation.

The self-described pro-Palestinian protesters barricaded themselves inside the nearly brand new Interdisciplinary Engineering Building on campus Monday evening. The building, which just opened with a "soft launch" to students in March, was funded in part with $50 million from the Washington state legislature.

On Tuesday, a professor led KOMO News through the building to show how doors were pulled off hinges, others were glued shut, machine manufacturing tools worth thousands of dollars were broken and smashed and a Boeing mural - with fresh paint and signage - was defaced. The university described the damage to their CNC machine tools as "extensive."

Yet, the University of Washington was reluctant to discuss any of it on Tuesday. The UW Police referred questions to University spokesperson Victor Balta, who told KOMO News no interviews would be granted and requested questions in writing. KOMO News submitted 10 questions to Balta.

Balta wrote that the UW was unaware of any planned takeover of the IEB and “what occurred (Monday) night in no way compares to last year's encampment. (Monday’s) incident involved immediate threats to safety for those inside and around the building and was resolved within a few hours. More than 30 arrests were made and there were no known injuries. The UW takes safety and security seriously, and last night's response demonstrated that.”

Balta also wrote that the university values its strong partnership with Boeing and acknowledged that the company donated $10 million to the now damaged building.

“At least two dozen classes are being moved to other locations while the build remains closed for the rest of the week,” Balta wrote in response to a question about the closure of the building. “These impact the majority of departments in the College of Engineering, and primarily undergraduate education. Classes include introduction to biomechanics and core principles of human design centered engineering.”

Balta also claims any student faces immediate suspension if proved to have a connection to the destruction.

wo streets near the building were blocked, as well as entrances to the building, which were barricaded with furniture, e-scooters, and other items.

The group of students, known as SUPER UW, released a manifesto Monday evening, demanding:

"WE DEMAND: UW will no longer be complicit in genocide. WE DEMAND: that our tuition money and our research not be used to fund and fuel genocide. Students have occupied the Interdisciplinary Engineering Building and declared that this building, renamed the Shaban al-Dalou Building will not be used to fund genocide, but to meet the needs of students and community.

Boeing out of the IEB. Repurpose the building into a community-controlled space with pro-people education.

Boeing out of UW. Stop receiving any and all donations from Boeing. Return any existing donations, financial investments, and eliminate all other material ties to Boeing. Prohibit Boeing executives and employees from teaching classes or having any influence over curriculum.

End the expulsion, suspension, and all repression and targeted assault of pro-Palestine activism and activists, especially providing protections for our fellow students being targeted by the federal government for their immigration status," it read, in part.

SUPER UW spokesperson Eric Horford told KOMO News the group planned to continue protests until the university heard its message.

“We are going to be here until our demands are met. We are here to negotiate with the university, and we are hoping they’ll hear us and speak with us,” he said.

Shortly after 10 p.m. Monday, protesters began burning trash from a dumpster used to block one of the campus streets. Police donned gear and stepped in just after 10:30 p.m. when the protest became dangerous and those involved broke into the building, according to the UW. Officers wearing SWAT gear were seen trying to get the situation under control.

Police were still monitoring the area Tuesday after UW campus police contacted the Seattle Police Department for "mutual aid assistance," according to the SPD.

UW President Ana Mari Cauce released a statement Tuesday afternoon condemning Monday night’s “violent and illegal occupation” of the Interdisciplinary Engineering Building on campus

President Trump’s administration has launched a review into the recent antisemitic activity at the University of Washington (UW) and its affiliates.

The review was announced on Tuesday evening by the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services (HHS), and the General Services Administration (GSA), a day after around 30 pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested on the school’s Seattle campus.

Trump’s administration welcomed the school’s condemnation of the protestors from Monday night and the police’s arrests of demonstrators but noted that UW “must do more to deter future violence and guarantee that Jewish students have a safe and productive learning environment.”

“The violence and chaos that ensued on University of Washington’s campus is yet another horrifying display of the antisemitic harassment and lawlessness which has characterized many of our nation’s elite campuses over the last several years. This destructive behavior is unacceptable,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement.

Many early Zionists rejected this spiritual inheritance. Free-thinkers, atheists, socialists, and communists sought to construct a new Jewish identity divorced from Torah—a secular utopia on sacred ground.

The Yaldei Teheran
In 1943, this ideological battle claimed innocent victims. When 730 orphaned Polish Jewish refugee children arrived in Tehran—90 percent from religious homes—the Jewish Agency assigned predominantly anti-religious Shomer haTza’ir counselors to oversee them.

The Yaldei Teiman
The pattern intensified in 1949 during “Operation Magic Carpet,” which brought 50,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel. In the Jewish Agency camps coercion became explicit: sidelocks were forcibly cut, parents threatened with loss of benefits if they chose religious education for their children. Most disturbing were reports of Yemenite infants who disappeared from hospitals, declared dead without bodies ever being returned to their families. Many believe these children were given to secular families to raise—their heritage erased. The subsequent Kahani-Kedmi Commission’s conclusion that most children died of illness was dismissed by many Yemenites as a “whitewash.”

Eighty people are in police custody Thursday morning after tense moments on Columbia University's campus after a pro-Palestinian protest sounded off in the Butler Library on Wednesday.

There will be limited access at Columbia's Morningside Heights campus on Thursday.

NYPD officers had initially responded and stayed off campus, but university officials say that after students refused to identify themselves or leave the building, they called in support from the police.

"Due to the number of individuals participating in the disruption inside and outside of the building, a large group of people attempting to force their way into Butler Library creating a safety hazard, and what we believe to be the significant presence of individuals not affiliated with the University, Columbia has taken the necessary step of requesting the presence of NYPD to assist in securing the building and the safety of our community," Columbia University Acting President Claire Shipman said.

In a statement, Mayor Eric Adams said that the NYPD entered the campus at the "written request" of the university to remove individuals who were trespassing.

"As I've said repeatedly, New York City will always defend the right to peaceful protest, but we will never tolerate lawlessness," Adams said in the statement. "To our Jewish New Yorkers, especially the students at Columbia who feel threatened or unsafe attending class because of these events: know that your mayor stands with you and will always work to keep you safe."

He said anyone protesting on campus who is not a student would be arrested.

Dozens of protestors were seen being led out in flex cuffs. Charges are pending for those taken in custody.

Some could see a possible summons, although some may be charged criminally, as two university public safety police officers were injured.

Most of those detained are not believed to be affiliated with the university.

"So, I saw everyone sort of chanted, the usual chants. And friends inside the library sent me videos that they were putting graffiti everywhere and apparently removing books from shelves," a witness said.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul took to social media in a statement saying, "Everyone has the right to protest, but vandalism and destruction of property is unacceptable."

Now, only ID holders and approved faculty guests can get on campus at limited access points.

The US Justice Department (DOJ) charged New York City resident Tarek Bazrouk, 20, with three counts of committing hate crimes against Jewish victims over the past nine months, the DOJ announced Wednesday after an indictment was unsealed in the Southern District of New York.

Police arrested Bazrouk that morning, and he faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
“As alleged, on three separate occasions, Tarek Bazrouk deliberately targeted and assaulted Jewish victims at protests relating to the Israel/Gaza war,” said US Attorney Jay Clayton.

“Despite being arrested after each incident, Bazrouk allegedly remained undeterred and quickly returned to using violence to target Jews in New York City. This Office is dedicated to seeking justice for victims of hate crimes and will aggressively prosecute those who spread bigotry and discrimination through violence.”

In the first incident, Bazrouk assaulted three Jewish individuals at an anti-Israel demonstration in mid-April 2024 while wearing a green headband, mimicking those worn by Hamas terrorists. The assaults occured in lower Manhattan, outside the NY Stock Exchange.

He was initially arrested for lunging at a group of pro-Israel protesters. As he was escorted by police to the vehicle, Bazrouk kicked a Jewish college student in the stomach. This student was standing by the group of pro-Israel protesters who were wearing kippahs, carrying Israeli flags, and singing songs.

Eight months later, in early December 2024, Bazrouk punched a Jewish student next to a university campus in upper Manhattan during an anti-Israel protest. This second victim was wearing a kippah along with his brother at the time of the assault, and they were both holding Israeli flags.

As the demonstration continued, Bazrouk stole an Israeli flag from the victim’s brother and fled. The brother followed Bazrouk through the crowd to retrieve the flag. This was when Bazrouk snuck up behind the victim and punched him in the face.

In the third incident, in early January 2025, Bazkrouk assaulted a third victim in the Gramercy Park area at another anti-Israel protest. Bazrouk made contact with the third victim’s shoulder and wrapped his foot around his ankle. The victim, who was wearing an Israeli flag, a hat with an Israeli flag, and a Star of David necklace, attempted to push Bazrouk away and cursed at him. That was when Bazrouk punched him in the nose with a closed fist.

Antisemitism on Bazrouk's phone
After law enforcement authorities searched Bazrouk’s phone, text messages revealed his support for Hamas and his antisemitic bias, according to the DOJ. In these messages, Bazrouk revealed himself as a “Jew hater,” labeled Jews as “worthless,” extorted “Allah” to “get rid of [Jews],” called an acquittance a “f*****g Jew,” and told a friend to “slap that b***h,” referencing a woman with an Israeli sticker on her laptop. He also told a friend that he was “mad happy” to learn that some of his family overseas are members of Hamas. His phone also held pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah propaganda.

“As alleged, Tarek Bazrouk deliberately set out to harm Jewish New Yorkers — targeting them at protests, singling them out, and assaulting them for nothing more than their identity,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch said.

The National Security Council issued a set of directives on Thursday for Israelis travelling to the Eurovision Song Contest, which is set to be held in Basel, Switzerland.

Israelis were warned to conceal Jewish or Israeli symbols and stay away from protests, among other directives.

The NSC's directives come two days after 70 former Eurovision participants penned an open letter demanding that Israel's representative to the competition, Yuval Raphael, not be allowed to take part. The letter was posted on artistsforpalestine.org.uk.

Of the 70, over 30 of the artists come from Iceland alone.

“Kan is complicit in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and the decades-long regime of apartheid and military occupation against the entire Palestinian people,” the letter read.

Israeli delegation preparing for the show
Also on Tuesday, the Israeli representative had her first rehearsal for her song, “New Day Will Rise,” written by Keren Peles.

Accompanying Raphael to the competition in Switzerland will be survivors of the October 7 attacks. Raphael, who is a survivor of the Nova massacre herself, lay buried under bodies of her murdered friends, pretending to be dead as Hamas terrorists stormed in during that dark Saturday.

The survivors accompanying Raphael are afraid to reveal their names for safety and security reasons, and are not an official part of the delegation.

It was also reported late last month that Palestinian flags will be permitted to be woven during the competition, according to Eurovision organizers.

“I stopped speaking Hebrew on campus.”

“I had to be escorted to the classroom.”

“My religion, identity, and dignity were put on trial.”

These are just some of the testimonies of Jewish students at British universities published in the StandWithUs UK report into the unprecedented levels of antisemitism since October 7, 2023.

The report, published on Wednesday, depicts the isolation, harassment, and abuse of Jewish students on campus, as well as how they have been let down by university authorities.

It also contains a series of recommendations that were endorsed by eight cross-party parliamentarians from both Houses of Parliament. These include recommendations for sanctions to be imposed on universities failing to comply with existing laws and guidelines, and for the government to launch an independent inquiry into the issue of antisemitism and extremism on campus.

Additionally, the House of Lords debated the report on Wednesday evening.

The students' testimonies
One of the most prolific features of the testimonies is outspoken student and staff support for proscribed terror groups, mainly Hamas and Hezbollah.

One student, from King’s College London (KCL), recalled a Cold War lecture turning into a 50-minute discussion defending Hamas’s actions on October 7, during which Hamas was called a “pioneer of change.”

Another student, at City St George’s, said one lecturer has publicly pro-Hamas views and yet “staff and campus security are turning a blind eye to open support for terrorism.”

A third student, from the University of East Anglia, said the student union’s campaigns and democracy officer had posted online material celebrating October 7 on the day of the massacre, and no disciplinary action was ever taken.At the University of Exeter, a student reportedly said, “If I was Palestinian, I would join Hamas.”

On another occasion, an Exeter student set up a pro-Israel stall, which was “surrounded by an aggressive mob.”“They screamed abuse at us, damaged our materials, and threw red liquid on our Israeli flag.

“No consequences, no investigation, no statement, no disciplinary process, just silence.”

These same words are echoed by almost every student in the report. The students report feeling failed and abandoned, as well as unsafe.

Some were encouraged to make complaints, such as one KCL student who was asked to lodge a report through the KCL Report and Support system, however “nothing changed.”

The testimonies are not limited to rhetoric; multiple students reported experiencing violence and physical threats. One student mentioned in the report – “T.” – spoke to The Jerusalem Post on condition of anonymity.

T. experienced her first antisemitic incident on the first day of university in September 2024, when her degree course’s group chat posted a lecture series about the conflict. One student said it was “an attempt to educate the Zionists.”

When T. queried why a Zionist needed educating, the replies became aggressive.

“Is there a f***ing Zionist in the group chat,” and “we’ve fished out a Zionist,” were just some of the messages sent in response to her message.

T. told the Post that her peers called for the administration to “get rid of her.”

“I was terrified to go into school the next day,” T. said. “My brother escorted me to classes, stood outside my lectures. I was literally scared that I would be attacked.”

She added that most of her peers began to ignore her, and most stopped talking.

However, the situation escalated on October 7, 2024, the first anniversary of the Hamas massacre.

“A pro-Palestinian walkout was scheduled for that day, followed by a rally outside. We organized a counter-protest with Israeli flags.”

After the protest, T. went on her phone and found that the same group chat had posted pictures of her at the counter-protest calling her a “dirty Zionist,” saying they wished she would “kill herself,” and threatening that if security had not be present, “people would have thrown hands.”

That evening, she saw that someone had anonymously posted pictures of her on a humorous KCL confessions page, asking, “Can we get names for these faces?” Someone had tagged her in the comments section, after which she was flooded with threats.

“I was actually distraught, inconsolable,” she said.

From this point, her father and three men from the Jewish Society escorted her everywhere on campus, and sat in class with her to the extent of missing their own classes.

“I missed a load of classes because I felt so unsafe. There were rows of empty seats next to me, people talking behind my back.”

She added that someone who she thought was a friend was peer-pressured into no longer speaking to her, and that students would discuss her in seminars.

“I was hate-crimed, doxxed and threatened, alienated and ostracized,” she said. “Has anyone been punished? Has the university done anything? Has the police done anything? No.”

T. spoke to everyone she could in management: the dean of the university, the dean of faculty, the vice dean of faculty, the department lead, but nothing was done.

Despite everything she experienced, T. told the Post that she chose to become louder and more outspoken in her activism.

“If they are going to hate me before I even open my mouth, I may as well open my mouth,” she said.

T. was not the only KCL student reporting threats of violence. A different KCL student wrote in the StandWithUs report that they hosted an event that was “stormed” by pro-Palestinian students.

“The situation escalated quickly. Campus security later told me it was the worst violence they had seen since the encampments last year. I was nearly physically assaulted.”

Similarly to T., the student reported the incident to multiple people in upper management, but “not one person has been held accountable.”

The student also said that there is no room for dissenting voices in the student union, as it is “openly known that to win the vote, you must secure what is referred to as ‘the Muslim vote.’”

After October 7, a University of St Andrews student said they returned to their university room to find all their Jewish and Israeli students thrown on the floor.

“This flat will not support an inhumane government or the terrorist activities of the IDF,” their flatmate told them.

A University of Manchester student was reported for Islamophobia after calling out peers celebrating the Hamas attacks. The student was then “harassed, doxxed, and publicly vilified.”

Other testimonies range from being told “Hamas is anti-Israel, not antisemitic,” by a lecturer to finding a swastika carved into a desk.

House of Lords debate
“Page after page [of the report] is littered with examples of loud and virulent support for Hamas and Hezbollah,” said Lord Cryer (Labour), in the House of Lords discussion on the matter on Wednesday.

“These are both proscribed as terrorist organizations, and expressing support for proscribed organizations should be met with the full force of the law.

“Example after example across many universities in this country. Including threats, intimidation, and physical attacks of Jewish students,” he said. “Jewish students are being ostracized by other students. While in many cases, university authorities stand idly by or actually sort of vaguely tacitly side with the aggressors.”Lord Leigh of Hurley referenced StandWithUS’s 2024 survey, which found that only 33% of British students described Hamas’s attacks as terrorism.

“We are in trouble,” he said. “The SWU UK report confirms the terrible state that we have come to, where high levels of antisemitic abuse seem now to be normal on campus.”

Baroness Deech drew attention to the fact that 18 student bodies have decided to support the legal action to decriminalize Hamas.

“We need implementation and enforcement. No more hand-wringing. No more robotic statements from vice chancellors,” she said.

She added that the government at the Office for Students education regulator should “not hesitate to fine universities that tolerate this hate and break the law. Staff and students who behave like this should be expelled or suspended. Universities’ funding of student unions should be leveraged to ensure legal behavior.”

Lord Gold suggested that the government “withdraw visas from international students who incite racial hatred” in a similar way to what the Trump administration is currently doing on US campuses.

Baroness Altman said, “UK universities are no longer feeling like safe places or inclusive spaces for the 9,000 Jewish students on our campuses,” adding that “Islamist groups have infiltrated our universities at all levels.

“To Jewish students and most Jews, the suggestion that Hamas is not a terrorist group is truly frightening. After the actions it perpetrated – beheading, rape, kidnapping and ongoing terror – it is I believe the duty of many of our universities to wake up to the threats that are all around them.”

Baroness Foster of Oxton said, “We the taxpayers fund our universities to the tune of £24 billion a year and yet we are expected to turn a blind eye to what is happening.”

Recommendations for combating campus antisemitism
The peers shared similar solutions to the StandWithUs report, which gave six recommendations: recognition, accountability, expulsion, inquiry, oversight, and inclusion.

Firstly, the report calls for anti-Zionist rhetoric to be recognized as a form of antisemitism, and suggests that universities receive training on the intersection between the two.

StandWithUs also said that universities should be held accountable by the government when antisemitism occurs in their institutions. This “zero-tolerance” policy should also involve consequences and public condemnations when needed.

On a similar vein, the report called for a government-backed public inquiry into systemic failures resulting in the proliferation of antisemitism in UK universities.

Similarly to the ongoing US crackdown, the report urged universities to discipline students who promote violence on campus or, in some cases, expel them.

A federal judge in Vermont on Friday ordered that Rumeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University student detained by immigration agents in March, be released from ICE custody.

"Öztürk is free to return to her home in Massachusetts. She’s also free to travel to Massachusetts and Vermont as she sees fit, and I am not going to put a travel restriction on her, because, frankly, I don’t find that she poses any risk of flight," Judge William K. Sessions III said.

The government was ordered to immediately release her, pending further proceedings on the merits of her habeas petition, the judge said.

Öztürk appeared virtually, with her attorney Mahsa Khanbabai, from the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center.

Khanbabai said she was "relieved and ecstatic" by the news.

"Unfortunately, it is 45 days too late. She has been imprisoned all these days for simply writing an op-ed that called for human rights and dignity for the people in Palestine," she said in a statement. "When did speaking up against oppression become a crime? When did speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?"

Rossman said she was "relieved" her client would soon be able to return to Massachusetts.

"For 45 days, Rümeysa has been detained in Louisiana — over 1300 miles from her friends, her community, and her lawyers. During that time, she has suffered regular and escalating asthma attacks," she said in a statement. "And at the same time, the government has failed to produce any justification for her detention."

During her testimony, Öztürk said that she was diagnosed with asthma in 2023 in her hometown in Turkey and had experienced attacks before her detainment.

During an episode, she said she experiences anxiety, exhaustion, chest tightness and coughing. They are usually brought on by environmental triggers as well as stress.

Tufts University medical center has helped her maintain her asthma, she said, noting that she has two inhalers, one for daily maintenance and another she uses when she has an attack.

Öztürk appeared to get upset as she testified about an attack at the Atlanta airport after she was detained. She was seen putting her hands over her chest and taking a deep breath.

"I was afraid, and I was crying," she told the court about the Atlanta incident.

After her testimony, Dr. Jessica McCannon, who has expertise in treating asthma, was called to the stand. While McCannon was speaking, Öztürk began coughing uncontrollably and appeared out of breath. Attorney Khanbabai, who was with Öztürk, said her client was having an asthma attack.

Öztürk rushed out of the room to get her inhaler.

Police and pro-Palestinian demonstrators clashed at Brooklyn College on Thursday, in the second major confrontation at a New York City campus in two days.

Some of the confrontations, including the tasering of a man who was being arrested, took place outside the Tanger Hillel House at Brooklyn College, the center for Jewish life on campus.

Seven people were reportedly arrested in the incident, which came a day after police arrested 80 people when pro-Palestinian protesters briefly occupied the main library at Columbia University and amid a flare nationally in pro-Palestinian student activism.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Trump administration was investigating the visa statuses of the 75 or more people arrested at Columbia, which is the epicenter of the administration’s effort to crack down on colleges with pro-Palestinian protests. He did not immediately respond to the incident at Brooklyn College.

The clashes, identities of those arrested
The extremist anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime soon exhorted its followers to turn out to support the protesters. On X, it wrote in all caps: “They need your support! Wear kuffiyehs and masks! Bring flags! And come in groups!”

The group added, “Brooklyn College is in a heavily Zionist neighborhood so be on high alert,” ending with a series of Palestinian flag emojis. Brooklyn College is at the intersection of Flatbush and Midwood neighborhoods, where many residents are Orthodox Jews.

In the clashes, captured on video attributed to FreedomNews.TV,, protesters can be heard screaming at the police officers as officers push back the crowd, at times pushing or throwing protesters to the ground. One man is tasered while being handcuffed, while at another point an officer exhorts a person present to, “Get that baby out of here.”

The identities of those arrested and cited by police and whether they are affiliated with Brooklyn College was not immediately clear.