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‘Heinous’: Bloodstained Palms Protest at Top Berlin University Over Gaza War Fuels Antisemitism Fears
Students at Berlin’s UdK University display palms stained with red to symbolize blood during a Nov. 13 pro-Hamas protest. Photo: Screenshot
A group of pro-Hamas students at one of Germany’s top universities have staged several protests throughout the month of November, turning their campus into an ideological battlefield that has left Jewish students feeling under siege.
On Wednesday, around 30 students at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) — widely recognized as one of the leading art colleges in the world — called a “Strike for Palestine.” After the university administration prevented the group from assembling outside the main entrance, stating that the protest had not been properly registered, the students moved to the university’s cafe where they issued a call for a boycott of Israeli universities.
A statement from the group shared with the Berliner Zeitung attacked the UdK for its alleged “complicity with this genocide” — a reference to Israel’s military campaign against Hamas terrorists in Gaza. They demanded the severing of the UdK’s ties with two Israeli institutions, the Bezalel College of Art and Shenkar College, “in view of their active support for the Israeli occupation forces (also known as IDF).” The statement also called on UdK faculty to cancel their lectures as a gesture of solidarity with the protesters. Posts on Instagram encouraging attendance at the protest denounced Israel for “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing.”
Wednesday’s action came a fortnight after around 100 students at the university gathered for another pro-Hamas protest. Carrying banners declaring “Stop Genocide,” “End Colonialism,” and “Free Palestine,” the students sat around a table with their palms facing outwards painted in red ink to symbolize blood.
While the gesture was apparently intended to condemn the German government’s support for Israel’s defensive military operation, several observers noted a striking similarity with the notorious lynching of two IDF reservists, Vadim Nurzhitz and Yosef Avrahami, in the West Bank city of Ramallah in Oct. 2000.
“Every Jewish student, actually anyone who has studied Israel’s recent history, will interpret the red hands differently: In October 2000, near Ramallah, two Israeli reservists were arrested for making a wrong turn and detained in a police station,” wrote Claudius Seidl of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in a lengthy article on the Nov. 13 protest at UdK. In an outburst of intense violence reminiscent of the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel, Nurzhitz and Avrahami were brutally murdered and their bodies mutilated by a Palestinian mob while both were in the custody of Palestinian Authority (PA) police officers.
One of their assailants, Aziz Salha, appeared at the window of the police station following the murder of the two Israelis, delightedly displaying his blood-stained palms to the appreciative crowd gathered outside. A photograph of Salha’s gesture quickly went viral and has kept its place as one of the most unsettling images captured during the conflict between Israel and Palestinian terrorist organizations.
Aziz Salha displays his bloodstained palms following the Oct. 2000 murder of two IDF reservists in Ramallah. Photo: Wikipedia
While the Nov. 13 protest was underway, Norbert Palz — the president of the UdK who had earlier issued a statement condemning the Hamas pogrom — attempted to reason with the group but was shouted down. According to Seidl’s account of the protest, the barracking of Palz was orchestrated by Tirdad Zolghadr, an Iranian-born arts curator who has been a visiting professor at UdK since 2022.
Following that protest, Jewish students at UdK began reporting incidents of harassment. A music student from Israel was spat on by an Arab man in the street outside the university after he was overheard speaking in Hebrew; the student later said that he was advised by the police officers to whom he reported the incident not to speak Hebrew “too loudly.” Meanwhile, in another incident, a female Israeli student was reduced to tears after pro-Hamas students told her she was to blame for the Oct. 7 atrocities as she had served in the Israeli army.
Neither student has ventured to the UdK campus since these incidents. Josefine von der Ahé, an art student at UdK, meanwhile told Seidl that she attributed “the receptivity of so many students to the stories of ‘evil Israel’ to profound ignorance of the State of Israel and its history.”
Several Berlin politicians condemned the protests at UdK. Adrian Grasse, who sits in the Berlin parliament for the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told the BZ news outlet that the “heinous events at the UdK are part of a development at the Berlin universities that I am following with increasing concern. With aggressiveness, hatred, defamation, and even the demand for the destruction of Israel, such actions make no contribution to peace and mutual understanding.”
Laura Neugebauer, an MP from the left-wing Green Party, similarly condemned the protests.
“Berlin universities must be places where Israelis and Jews can study safely and freely,” she said. “There can be no ‘ifs’ or ‘buts’ here.”
The UdK’s origins stretch back to the foundation of the Prussian Academy of Arts in the latter part of the 17th century. The present school was formed through the merger of a music college and a fine arts college in 1975.
The post ‘Heinous’: Bloodstained Palms Protest at Top Berlin University Over Gaza War Fuels Antisemitism Fears first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.