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Leading Academic Group Denounces National Women’s Studies Association for Silence on Hamas Atrocities Against Women
Maayan Zin embraces her daughters Ela Elyakim, 8, and Dafna Elyakim, 14, former Israeli hostages, shortly after their arrival in Israel on Nov. 26, after being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, at Hatzerim military base in Israel, in this handout picture released by the Zin family on Nov. 26, 2023. Photo: Zin Family/Handout via REUTERS
A group of feminists and scholars at US universities has issued a searing open letter censuring the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) for not condemning the rapes and other sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists during their deadly rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7.
The Section for Women Faculty of the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), a nonprofit that advocates academic freedom and open exchange in higher education, noted in its letter that since the Palestinian terror group’s onslaught, the NWSA has issued two statements attacking Israel’s military response, neither of which mentioned Hamas’ female victims or the 240 people abducted as hostages to Gaza. Beyond the kidnappings, Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and injured thousands more.
NWSA’s silence, AEN argued, is a seismic moral failure.
“We are outraged by the NWSA’s abandonment of women and girls who have experienced horrible atrocities and by its utter refusal to acknowledge the plight of Israeli women and girls in either its recent programming or public statements,” said the letter, which was shared with The Algemeiner. “The two statements that the NWSA released on Oct. 11 and Oct. 31 condemn Israel’s military response to the Hamas massacre yet fail to denounce the brutality of Hamas terrorists, who were given orders to rape.”
It added that in refusing to condemn Hamas, NWSA alienated Jewish academics and students of women’s studies — a problem, the group explained, that goes back to 2015, when NWSA endorsed the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. The BDS movement seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward the Jewish state’s eventual elimination.
“We are deeply concerned that on account of this indefensible position, Jewish scholars and students are now thoroughly ostracized from the association, and by extension, from the discipline of Gender Studies,” the letter continued. “Jewish feminist engagement in the NWSA has been in decline for a number of years. The organization’s professional standing has truly been diminished by its antisemitism.”
Beyond the NWSA, women’s groups and sexual assault centers on university campuses and even within the United Nations have been noticeably silent on well documented cases of Hamas terrorists raping Israeli girls and women, as well as other acts of sexual violence, during their Oct. 7 onslaught.
On Friday, AEN executive director Miriam Elman stressed during a conversation with The Algemeiner that recognizing the traumas Israeli women endured does not exclude advocating for Palestinian women whom Hamas denies basic economic and political freedoms through its enforcement of Sharia law.
“You can show empathy for Palestinian women and girls — and please do — because they are oppressed through subjugation and honor killings,” Elman said. “Many in the section also want to say that they recognize that Palestinian women and girls are impacted by the war. You can do that and also recognize that Hamas systematically used rape as a weapon of war, condemn that, and call for the release women and girls who are still hostages Gaza.”
She added, “There are still young women in their 20s and early 30s still being held hostage. G-d knows what has happened to them since being taken into captivity. NWSA has released two statements that did not say one word about these atrocities.”
Feminist author Phyllis Chesler, a professor emerita of psychology and member of AEN’s Section for Women Faculty — called NWSA’s spurning of Jewish women “craven,” adding that “women’s studies has been more concerned with the alleged occupation of a country that never existed — Palestine — than with the real occupation of women’s bodies in Gaza and throughout the Arab world.”
Founded in 1977 with help from a grant awarded by the Ford Foundation, the National Women’s Studies Association is a professional academic society that claims to have over 300 members and institutional partnership with over 350 university academic departments. In recent years, its public statements have rarely addressed rising antisemitism in the US and across the world, doing so only after neo-Nazis marched through Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. The group has, however, issued statements in support of Asian Americans, African Americans, and Palestinians.
“Palestinian solidarity is a feminist issue,” NWSA said during Israel’s 2021 war with Hamas while alleging that Israel has “perpetrated” sex crimes against Palestinian women.
Anti-Israel bias in professional academic societies has increased in recent years. Within a year, both the Middle Eastern Studies Association (MESA) and the American Anthropological Association (APA) endorsed the BDS movement, drawing criticism from scholars who condemned the decisions for being “shameful” and “profoundly destructive.”
The problem also exists in prestigious post-graduate academic programs, Elman told The Algemeiner. She noted that over 100 scholars organized by her group recently issued a second letter denouncing the Fulbright Program, as well as the Fulbright Association, for not issuing any statements denouncing Hamas’ atrocities on Oct. 7, despite Hamas abducting one of its alumni, Israeli academic Shoshan Haran, and murdering her husband, sister, and brother-in-law.
The doucment also denounced a separate letter signed by nearly 1,000 Millennial and Generation-Z Fulbright Scholars, all but one of whom participated in the program during the 21st century, that accused Israel of committing genocide and did not reference the Hamas atrocities.
“Haran was an accomplished alumnus of Fulbright, and you can’t say anything about her, you can’t speak out, you can’t say one sentence calling for her release? Their selectivity of empathy is unconscionable,” Elman said. Commenting on the tendency of young scholars to be virulently anti-Israel and to promote falsehoods about the Jewish state, she added, “It’s very concerning that all these young scholars are so morally confused.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Leading Academic Group Denounces National Women’s Studies Association for Silence on Hamas Atrocities Against Women 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.