(Source: Instagram)
Anti-Israel protesters in Seattle, Washington, celebrate the second anniversary of Hamas's October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel by waving a flag bearing the image of former Hamas spokesperson Abu Obaida and holding a sign with an image of armed militants and the message, "Resistance is justified when people are occupied."
Even as talks for a ceasefire in Gaza were underway, U.S. anti-Israel activists nationwide marked the second anniversary of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terror attack against Israel by glorifying the violence of that day, demonizing Israel and Zionists, and engaging in disruptive actions in cities and on college campuses across the country.
This year’s anniversary of the terror massacre was once again met with hundreds of anti-Israel protests, following calls for organized “days of action” from groups such as National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Anti-War Action Network (AWAN), Behind Enemy Lines (BEL), and others.
These actions mirrored similar activities last year to mark the first anniversary of the attack and demonstrate the solidification of extreme rhetoric and tactics within the movement over the past two years. These developments are also an indication that such activities and rhetoric are unlikely to abate even when the ceasefire plan is implemented.
Extreme Support for Terror Again Dominates Anniversary Activities
Several organizations directly referenced Hamas’s name for its October 7 attack—the “Al-Aqsa Flood”—in their remarks on the ground and online.
In the Seattle area, a coalition of college, high school, and middle school students led by extreme anti-Zionist groups Seattle Revolutionary Youth, Puget Sound Revolutionary Student Union, and Tariq El-Tahrir (TET)—the student branch of the transnational group Masar Badil—organized walkouts at dozens of schools on Tuesday “in commemoration of 2 Years since Al Aqsa Flood (October 7),” culminating in a joint rally.
At these events, students displayed signs with explicit pro-terror messages that included, “Power grows from the barrel of a gun! Long live Operation Al Aqsa Flood!” with imagery of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader Leila Khaled. Signs also included the slogan “Long live the heroic armed resistance,” alongside inverted red triangle imagery, a symbol popularized by Hamas in propaganda videos to mark targets.
(Screenshot/Instagram)
Protesters hold banners and signs glorifying terror and violence at student walkouts in the Seattle area on October 7, 2025.
Following the student-led rally, another Seattle protest also openly glorified numerous notorious terrorist group leaders with posters and other signage honoring figures such as Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Ayyash, and Jamila al-Shanti; Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, PFLP’s Walid Daqqa, and many others.
This protest was led by a coalition of groups that included SUPER UW (Students United for Palestinian Equality and Return at the University of Washington), Seattle Against War, Nidal Seattle, and Bilyad Seattle —extreme anti-Zionist groups that have expressed support for terrorism and have ties to the PFLP-linked group Samidoun.
Local chapters of SJP, SDS, FRSO, Healthcare Workers for Palestine (HCW4P), Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression (NAARPR), All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP), and others endorsed the event.
A Boston protest on October 7 titled “Flood Downtown for Palestine” featured promotional fliers with explicit pro-Hamas and pro-violence messaging, including imagery of an overrun Israeli tank during the Hamas October 7 attack and of a police car on fire. The material also included a quote from deceased Hamas spokesperson Abu Obaida and the statement, “Do you support decolonization as an abstract theory? Or as a tangible event? And what will you do about it?”
The protest was organized by SJP chapters and other local anti-Israel student groups from Boston College, Boston University, Emerson College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Simmons College, and Tufts University. As the evening wore on, the event devolved into violence, resulting in injuries to several police officers and the arrest of 13 individuals, all between the ages of 19-28. Those arrested included current and former students affiliated with the groups involved in organizing the protest.
In New York, Within Our Lifetime (WOL)—a radical anti-Israel organization known for regularly leading some of the most extreme anti-Israel protests in the country—organized a large-scale protest to “Flood New York City for Gaza. One of WOL's leaders, Fatima Mohammed, declared in remarks to the crowd: “October 7th was about one thing: It was about freeing the political prisoners.” Another WOL leader, Abdullah Akl, implored supporters to “show up stronger than we did the first October 7th.”
Hundreds of protesters, including many college students who had participated in SJP-led school walkouts throughout the city earlier in the day, rallied outside News Corp’s headquarters and then marched through Times Square and other parts of Midtown while calling to “end Zionism.” Protesters also brazenly displayed Hamas, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas’s military wing), Hezbollah, PFLP, and other terror group flags and headbands.
Terror paraphernalia was also seen in other cities at protests throughout the week, including in Philadelphia, New Orleans, and St. Louis.
(Screenshot/Instagram)
Anti-Israel protesters celebrate the second anniversary of Hamas's October 7 attack by displaying flags depicting deceased Hamas spokesperson Abu Obaida (left, in Dallas on October 4, 2025) and the Hamas logo (right, in St. Louis on October 7, 2025).
The Philadelphia protest on October 7, organized by groups including the Philly Palestine Coalition and various SJP chapters, was titled “Rally for Rage and Resistance” and advertised a flier that featured an infamous image of a bulldozer breaking through the Gaza border fence on October 7. A speaker at the protest proclaimed that October 7 was “not a day of terrorism,” but the day that “Gaza broke out of the prison that it was in” and a “historical day of resistance.”
Protesters marched past the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History while chanting “Death, death to the IOF” (a reference to the “Israel Occupation Forces,” a name often used by anti-Israel activists to denounce the Israel Defense Forces).
Online, the Philly Palestine Coalition and Philadelphia SJP Coalition published a statement authored by the Swarthmore College SJP chapter that celebrated Hamas’s attack, describing October 7 as a “glorious day” and declaring “Long Live the Palestinian Armed Resistance.”
Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) was among the various other anti-Israel student groups nationwide that published similarly extreme statements online. On X, CUAD wrote, “Today we honor the second anniversary of the heroic Al Aqsa Flood,” and praised numerous terror groups and leaders by name.
In Cincinnati, activists dropped banners from highway overpasses with parachute imagery and displayed makeshift parachutes in various locations, intended to call to mind Hamas’s use of paragliders to infiltrate Israel and kill civilians on October 7.
Paraglider imagery was also prominent in online statements, such as those from the U.S.-based group PAL-Awda, which used a paraglider graphic alongside a statement honoring Hamas’s “freedom fighters” and allied terrorist groups in the region.
(Screenshot/Instagram)
Social media graphics posted by PAL-Awda (left) and Samidoun (right) celebrating the second anniversary of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack.
The transnational group Samidoun, which was sanctioned by the U.S. government in October 2024 for its ties to the PFLP, published a paraglider graphic alongside a lengthy statement praising October 7 as “the day that changed the world” and “a great revolutionary occasion.”
In addition to the widespread support for terror and armed violence, another common theme at the anniversary was chants of “We don’t want no Zionists here,” “The Zionists have got to go,” and “Zionists out of Palestine” ringing out often.
On October 8, San Francisco State University Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) Studies Program and its founding director, Professor Rabab Abdulhadi, hosted a webinar titled, “Two Years on Gaza, Genocide, and Resilience: The Undefeated Struggle for Palestinian Liberation.” Abdulhadi—a member of the anti-Israel groups Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) and the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism (ICSZ)—repeated claims that echoed her long history of praising designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs), defending the October 7 attack, and denying the sexual violence committed by Hamas against Israeli women.
Panelist Mariela Castro, daughter of former Cuban president Raul Castro and an outspoken critic of Israel, drew on classic antisemitic tropes when she claimed that Zionism is a “threat” to “the entire world,” and alleged that Zionists “have been penetrating every aspect of every country’s life, whether it’s financially, commercially, culturally, language, politically.”
Looking Ahead
At protests and on social media, anti-Israel activists addressed the prospects of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, largely praising Hamas for its “victory” while simultaneously minimizing the potential deal as primarily serving Israel and the U.S. Activists called for continued protest and action to oppose Israel and “destroy Zionism.”
The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), an extreme anti-Israel group, offered a succinct representation of this prevailing sentiment in its statement commemorating Hamas’s October 7 attack, writing: “We must fight for the eradication of Zionism, and for the end of the fascist state of Israel.”
This rhetoric echoed similar commentary that followed previous temporary ceasefire agreements over the course of the war. Regardless of any imminent changes on the ground in Gaza, many in the U.S. anti-Israel movement will likely continue to agitate.
