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Palestinian Supporters at My School Don’t Want Free Speech; They Want to Silence Jews
Cobb Hall at the University of Chicago. Photo: Dion J. Pierre.
On March 11, 2025, University of Chicago students took to the quad, just as final exams were beginning, to oppose the arrest of Columbia University encampment organizer Mahmoud Khalil.
Khalil is accused of distributing pro-Hamas propaganda, including material labeled from the “Hamas Media Office.” The University of Chicago student demonstrators invoked our school’s principles in defense of freedom of expression — labeling the arrest a violation of Khalil’s right to free speech.
Unfortunately, these protestors only agree with free speech when it is content they agree with.
These student groups see the Chicago principles as a means to their anti-Western, anti-American ends, not as principles that are essential to liberty and democracy.
Consider the following example: In February 2025, Israel confirmed that civilian hostages, Ariel, Kfir, and their mother, Shiri Bibas, had been murdered in Hamas captivity. Ariel was 4 years old, and his little brother was 9 months old when they were kidnapped.
Israeli forensic analysis confirmed that they had been strangled to death, and that Hamas terrorists had desecrated their bodies in an attempt to obscure their crimes.
As the Jewish world mourned the murdered children, Hamas staged a revolting propaganda ceremony, where they simultaneously celebrated their deaths yet blamed Israel for the outcome.
Although the Bibas family’s true cause of death has been proven by forensic evidence, some of my peers at the University of Chicago still believe the terrorist propaganda that they perished at the hands of Israel.
In response to the murders, Maroons for Israel — the pro-Israel student organization on campus, of which I am the President– placed a University-approved installation on the Swift quadrangles in memory of Kfir Bibas on Monday, March 3.
By Friday, March 7, it was defaced; as far as we can tell, it was vandalized in broad daylight.
Within hours of the destruction, Maroons for Israel saw a message on Instagram attempting to justify the vandalism, citing an Al Jazeera article baselessly parroting Hamas propaganda that the children died in IDF rocket fire.
Students and faculty at this school claim to support free expression, and then they applaud the suppression of our organization’s free speech.
And that’s not the first time their hypocrisy has been on display. Last November, our approved banner explaining the danger of “globalize the intifada” rhetoric was dismantled and left in a dumpster.
Also, during an encampment on campus last spring, our approved installations were destroyed every evening, like clockwork, and every morning we had to rebuild them.
Where were these free speech warriors when Maroons for Israel was forced to guard our property into the late hours of the night to ward off defacement? Where were these First Amendment activists when the picture of a murdered child’s face was ripped in half?
These students are also disrupting speaker events, and attempting to shut down opinions they disagree with. They called for the boycott of what they labelled “Zionist classes.” They invoke the principle of free speech when it suits them, but show open disdain for it otherwise.
Maroons for Israel calls on the silent majority of the student body, those who do not despise the Chicago principles, to join us in highlighting the hypocrisy of the anti-Israel demonstrators. Join us in our dissent against the radicalized groups, who claim to speak for you, while openly displaying their hatred of the principles you actually support.
Joachim Sciamma is a student at the University of Chicago and a 2024–2025 fellow for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) on campus.
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Body of Mohammed Sinwar Recovered from Gaza, Taken to Israel
A screengrab shows according to the Israeli Army, Hamas Gaza chief Mohammed Sinwar, taken from a handout video, released Dec/ 17, 2023. Photo: Israeli Army/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – During excavations carried out recently in the area of the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, several bodies were found – i24NEWS learned on Sunday that one belonged to late Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, which is now being held in Israel.
On Saturday night, the Israel Defense Forces published documentation from the underground space located under the European Hospital in Khan Yunis. The tunnels include a command and control complex from which the fighting was conducted by senior Hamas commanders. During the scans, several additional bodies of terrorists were found.
About three weeks ago, Israel heavily shelled the hospital area, targeting the underground space below it, where the terrorist organization’s headquarters was located. In recent days, Israeli forces have been operating in the area, with an emphasis on underground tunnels, and have located the body. The IDF’s recovery of Sinwar’s body contradicts a previous report, according to which Hamas recovered his body from the tunnel under the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, and buried it in a tunnel in the Deir al-Balah area.
Sinwar was one of the senior and veteran figures in Hamas’ military wing, and took a significant part in the planning and execution of the murderous massacre on October 7, 2023, in which he served as head of the operations headquarters. After the assassination of military commander Mohammed Deif, Sinwar was appointed by his brother, late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, to the position. He was an influential and central factor in the organization’s decision-making, promoting Hamas’s effort to rehabilitate after IDF operations.
Now, Israel possesses the bodies of both Sinwar brothers, with much of the Hamas leadership eliminated in the more than 600 days since the war began.
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Hamas Militants Kill Gaza Civilians, Publicly Asserting Brutal Control
A drone view shows buildings lying in ruins, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, Jan. 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Al-Basos
i24 News – The Israeli army released footage from the Gaza Strip on Sunday showing a Palestinian brutally shot dead in public by what the military claims is a Hamas militant.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, General Ghassan Alian, released the footage via military channels. According to the official statement, the brutal execution took place last weekend in a Gaza City square, in front of witnesses. Israeli military authorities described the footage as “exceptional documentation” illustrating the Islamist movement’s methods against its own population.
General Alian addressed the residents of Gaza directly in a statement – “Hamas, terrorists, and criminals are killing you and do not care about your lives,” he said. “There is no difference between a dictator who kills in silence and a terrorist who massacres openly. Both are your enemies and the enemies of life.”
Alian described the act as “a desperate, further, and failed attempt to sow public fear in order to preserve Hamas’s rule, power, and governance, while cynically trampling on and exploiting the residents of Gaza for the survival of the Hamas terrorist regime and the preservation of its rule.”
Meanwhile, the IDF is intensifying its operations in key flashpoints in Gaza, particularly in Jabalia and Khan Yunis. Military forces continue to reach areas where they were not previously present.
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Two of Four Israeli Soldiers Killed in Gaza Building Collapse Identified
Tom Rothstein and the late Uri Jonathan Cohen / Photo: Israeli army spokesman
i24 News – Four Israeli soldiers were killed on Friday in the collapse of a building in Khan Younis during a military operation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The incident occurred during an offensive by the 98th Division targeting Hamas infrastructure in northern Khan Younis, near Bani Suheila.
The fallen soldiers were identified as Staff Sergeant Tom Rotstein, 23, from Ramat Gan; Staff Sergeant Uri Yehonatan Cohen, 20, from Neve Yarok; Reserve Staff Sergeant Chen Gross, 33; and Staff Sergeant Yoav Rovor, 19. All served in the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit.
According to IDF sources, the soldiers were part of a mission to secure a Hamas compound believed to contain underground tunnels. A powerful explosive device detonated during the operation, causing the structure to partially collapse and trap the soldiers inside.
Five additional soldiers were wounded—one seriously and four moderately. They were airlifted to hospitals, while search and recovery teams from the Home Front Command worked for hours to extract the bodies from the rubble.
This latest incident brings the total number of Israeli military fatalities to eight this week alone, raising the overall death toll to 424 since the start of the ground offensive in Gaza.
Earlier this week, three soldiers from the Rotem Battalion of the Givati Brigade were killed by an improvised explosive device in the northern Gaza Strip. Reserve Staff Sergeant Alon Perkas, 27, also died during separate combat in the Shejaiya neighborhood.
The IDF continues its operations in Gaza as military and political leaders navigate the high costs of an enduring conflict with Hamas.
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