“Say it louder, say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here,” “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” and “we will free Palestine within our lifetime” were just a few of the chants recited by anti-Israel student protesters who came to Washington Square Park to “Flood NYC for Palestine” on the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 massacre. 

The protest, which drew some hundred students and non-students, was organized by anti-Israel groups Within Our Lifetime and Students for Justice in Palestine. The October 7 demonstration kicks off National Students for Justice in Palestine’s so-called “Week of Rage” which includes staged protests at college campuses across the country. The group is currently facing legal action for allegedly serving as a terrorist arm of Hamas on American college campuses and has been blackballed by numerous universities. 

The demonstrations began at 1 p.m. on Wall Street and snaked uptown through Times Square before ending at Columbus Circle at 6 p.m. Most of the protesters appeared to be students from schools across the city, who had ditched classes to follow the call by Within Our Lifetime: “No Work, No School, All Out For Gaza.”

After the main rally on the northeast area of the park dispersed, several anti-Israel protesters approached pro-Israel counter protesters who were stationed by the park’s fountain. The counter protesters — who also were students from several universities across the city — were protected by a line of police officers. They held Israeli flags, sang the Israeli national anthem, HaTikvah, and shouted “bring them home!” referencing the more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza. 

One of the anti-Israel agitators, whose face was covered with a keffiyeh, managed to grab hold of an Israeli flag and proceeded to shout obscenities at the peaceful counter-protesters while ripping the flag and stomping on what remained. 

Soon after, when one of the counter protesters began to name the crimes committed by Hamas on October 7, the same anti-Israel protester denied the claims and shouted back: “Show us videos of the rapes.”

One of the counter protesters, a sophomore at Yeshiva University, Mark Levy, said he comes to these protests to show  “that there’s another side,” he tells the Sun. 

Mr. Levy said that the protests are “very close to home” for him because he was stabbed by a terrorist in the Old City of Jerusalem before October 7. The people protesting, he said, “want Israel to disappear. And they want the Jews to disappear with them.” 

Another counter protester, Bella Ingber, is a NYU student and the president of her school’s Students Supporting Israel chapter. She, along with a group of fellow pro-Israel student activists, came to “show that there is a strong pro-Israel voice.” 

“We’re not going anywhere,” she told the Sun. “We’re not Jews with trembling knees. We are not backing down. We will fight for our home and our people.” 

The fact that the protesters were staging a rally on the anniversary of October 7 — “On the day that  my community was ravaged and brutalized” she says — is “absolutely appalling” and indicates that the protest “can be interpreted as nothing other than a celebration of the massacre of Jews and of Jewish death.” 

Ms. Ingber was holding a joint American and Israeli flag to represent that “this war is not just a war that Israel is fighting, but it’s a war on the west. And the west is next.” 

Ahead of the October 7 demonstration, Within Our Lifetime held a “survival guide to arrests and jail support” over Zoom to “prepare” student protesters for confrontations with police.

Within Our Lifetime has been behind some of the most virulent anti-Israel protests across the country — including the demonstration staged outside of the Nova Exhibit, which commemorates the victims of the attack on a concert on that day — and has openly called for violence against Israeli civilians. The Anti-Defamation League has dedicated an entire webpage to calling out the organization’s antisemitic offenses. 

“WOL, SJP and JVP feel no shame in celebrating the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust; no shame in celebrating the kidnapping of infants and toddlers; no shame in celebrating the abduction of aging Holocaust and Farhoud survivors: no shame in celebrating the barbaric murder, maiming, and mutilation of innocent civilians and children,” Bronx Congressman, Ritchie Torres, wrote on X the day before the protest. 

“The decent among us must never stop shaming the shameful and shameless apologists for October 7th. The fate of our civilization depends on the triumph of moral clarity over moral confusion,” he added. 

Meanwhile, NYU Hillel offered a full day of memorial programs, including an exhibit modeled after one shown at the ANU Museum of the Jewish People, in Israel, which examines “Israeli culture’s reaction to the war through three pillars: art works, playlists, and video.”   

In the evening, the group will head just a few blocks uptown to join in a wider memorial that’s being held in Central Park. Governor Hochul was expected to join, as well as families of those taken hostage by Hamas.