Student Protesters Drive Surge of Extreme Activities Marking Third Anniversary of Hamas-Led Oct. 7 Attack

Anti-Israel activists around the world marked the third anniversary of the October 7 Hamas-led terror attack on Israel with protests and social media posts that frequently praised the terrorists’ actions. In addition, many called for further targeting of Zionists globally.

ADL analysts tracked approximately 300 demonstrations across the United States, many of which included protesters who expressed pro-terror rhetoric and displayed terror paraphernalia, including Hamas and Hezbollah flags, as well as photographs or imagery depicting notorious terrorists. Signs displayed at protests also included references to classic antisemitic tropes as well as antisemitic slurs and symbols, including swastika imagery, “Zionazi” language, and claims that the U.S. government is controlled by Israel.

While activity in some cities failed to attract the same crowd sizes as in previous years, student and youth groups continued to drive significant activity on and off campus.

In New York City, a coalition of groups including Within Our Lifetime (WOL), CUNY for Palestine, and chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) led a largescale protest that culminated in the disruption of an October 7 memorial vigil being held by a liberal Israeli group at Union Square.

Protesters openly heckled vigil participants, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, despite the mayor’s anti-Israel positions and history of associating with the very same antizionist groups who organized the protest. Protesters made their extreme position unmistakable, chanting, “we support Hamas here” and “we support Hezbollah here.”
 

(Source: Screenshot Instagram/X)

Signs and paraphernalia displayed at a protest in New York City on October 7, 2026, included Hamas and Hezbollah flags, figures, and related imagery.

Students at more than 140 U.S. colleges and K–12 schools organized activity related to the anniversary. Many of these student activists used rhetoric venerating Hamas’s attack and some also targeted Jewish student organizations, calling for the exclusion of Jewish student groups or Zionists (someone who believes in the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, a position held by the vast majority of Jews worldwide) from campus. Online statements posted by many anti-Israel groups for the anniversary reiterated similar pro-terror and antisemitic sentiments.

At the University of Oregon, protesters gathered outside the college’s Hillel — a frequent target of protests in recent years — and chanted, “Hillel off campus” and “glory to the martyrs of the Al-Aqsa Flood.” At an SJP-led protest at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., a speaker praised the October 7 attack as “a prison break that shook the American imperial world order and a struggle that has just begun.” At New York University, a speaker urged the crowd to take inspiration from October 7: “we must keep the intifada alive…glory to the martyrs and victory to the resistance.”

For the second year in a row, widespread middle and high school walkouts also took place nationwide. Protesters at student-organized rallies in Seattle openly cheered Hamas. Graffiti left behind in a park and on buildings after one of these protests included the phrases, “Victory to Hamas,” “Long live Oct 7,” “Death to Zionism,” and Hamas-inspired inverted red triangle imagery. Multiple Seattle-area protests involved organizations such as SUPER UW, Tariq El-Tahrir (TET), and Nidal Seattle that are known to associate with the transnational group Masar Badil, which was sanctioned by the U.S. government in August 2026 over its ties to foreign terror.

In addition to familiar organizations like SJP, YDSA, and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), smaller, radical far-left organizations including Anti-Imperialist Front, Revolutionary Youth, and Revolutionary Student groups played a key role in much of this activity. Various other youth-driven left-wing and anti-war groups were also involved. The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Sunrise Movement, and Anti-War Action Network (AWAN), for example, helped organize rallies at which speakers shared such statements as, “we take pride in the heroism we saw through Al-Aqsa Flood,” and praised Hamas’s actions as a “courageous act towards liberation.”

These anniversary protests and incidents demonstrate how even years after the height of the post-October 7 encampments, student and youth organizers continue to attract a new generation of activists and to be a persistent driver of much of the most extreme, and frequently openly antisemitic, messaging within the broader anti-Israel movement.