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U. of Vermont agrees to improve antisemitism training, ending federal case and capping a tumultuous year
(JTA) – A year of strained relations between the University of Vermont and its Jewish community has led to the school resolving a federal antisemitism complaint and pledging to do more to protect its Jewish students — including from anti-Zionist rhetoric.
The university and the U.S. Department of Education announced Monday that they had reached a resolution to the complaint, which the department took up last fall after it was filed by students and pro-Israel groups. The complaint alleged that the institution had not properly responded to Jewish students’ allegations of antisemitic discrimination. Investigators determined that the university “received notice, but did not investigate” several claims of antisemitic behavior on campus, and that the steps it ultimately took did not adequately address students’ concerns.
Notably, the department’s office of civil rights determined that one of the ways the university’s Jewish students had been discriminated against was through “national origin harassment on the basis of shared ancestry,” reflecting a controversial argument promoted by pro-Israel groups that anti-Zionist rhetoric is harmful to all Jews because the Jewish people share Israel as an ancestral homeland. The resolution of the complaint also reflects a sharp change in course for the school, which had initially denied wrongdoing and blamed the accusations on an orchestrated external campaign — a response that upset the campus Jewish community.
“This complaint was overwhelmingly dealing with the antisemitism that masks as anti-Zionism, and what the resolution demonstrates is how seriously [the office] is taking that kind of antisemitism,” Alyza Lewin, president of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency after the ruling. A pro-Israel legal group that often involves itself in campus disputes, the Brandeis Center was one of the organizations that filed the initial complaint on behalf of mostly anonymous students.
The Department of Education responded to a JTA request for comment by pointing to its letter of resolution with the university. Its civil rights office has fielded several challenges to anti-Zionist rhetoric since the Donald Trump administration expanded the department’s mandate around antisemitism in 2019 under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The office of civil rights is fast becoming a favorite tool for pro-Israel activists: It also announced this week it would open an investigation into allegations of a professor’s antisemitic behavior at George Washington University, a week after the university’s own investigation cleared the faculty member of charges brought by another pro-Israel group.
In the agreement, the University of Vermont pledged to revise its policies for reporting discrimination and to train its staff on how to specifically respond to discrimination complaints. The Department of Education will also review the university’s records regarding its response to last year’s allegations of antisemitism. One of the areas in which the university said it would train staff is on how to recognize “the Title VI prohibition against harassment based on national origin, including shared ancestry.”
Among the allegations: cases of unofficial student groups denying admission to “Zionist” students (including a support group for sexual-assault survivors); one graduate teaching assistant who had mused on social media about lowering the grades of Zionist students; and a group of students who’d reportedly thrown an object at the campus Hillel building (the complaint claimed it was a rock; Hillel staff told JTA it was a puffball mushroom). More than 20% of the university’s student body is Jewish, according to Hillel International.
Evan Siegel, a Jewish junior at the University of Vermont, poses in his off-campus housing in Burlington, October 13, 2022. Siegel was initially critical of his school for its handling of a federal antisemitism investigation, but praised its eventual resolution. (Andrew Lapin/Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
The agreement marked a sharp change from how the university first responded when the government announced its intent to investigate the complaint last fall. Back then, the university’s president, Suresh Garimella, issued a combative statement in which he said the university “vigorously denies the false allegation of an insufficient response to complaints of threats and discrimination.” He also issued a point-by-point refutation of the allegations in the complaint.
Garimella further charged that the complaint had been orchestrated by “an anonymous third party” that had “painted our community in a patently false light.” In addition to the Brandeis Center, the complaint was filed on behalf of students by the watchdog group Jewish On Campus, whose antisemitism-tracking methodology has been criticized by other groups.
Garimella’s combativeness at the time was an unusual move for the leader of a university accused of violating Title VI law, which prohibits discriminatory behavior at federally-funded programs or institutions, such as public universities. Groups like the Brandeis Center have increasingly leaned on Title VI in federal complaints to argue that pro-Israel students face discrimination. Title VI cases have become a central component of litigating multiple kinds of Israel discourse on campus, ranging from a pro-Israel student body president being targeted at the University of Southern California to a resolution passed by pro-Palestinian law student groups at the University of California, Berkeley.
In Burlington, where the university is located, some liberal Jews were initially dubious of the complaint. Felicia Kornbluh, a history professor on campus who often teaches American Jewish history, told JTA she was concerned about “playing into the narrative” of a conservative, pro-Israel agenda set by the Brandeis Center, whom she described as “allies of the Trump wing of the Republican party.” (The center’s founder, Kenneth Marcus, served as assistant secretary of education for civil rights under Trump.)
But the complaint also landed in the aftermath of a contentious Burlington city council meeting at which, Kornbluh and others said, pro-Palestinian protesters became hostile to Jews. The meeting featured a council resolution to endorse the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign against Israel, and resulted in a raucous scene where pro-Palestinian groups shouted down Jewish students singing prayers for peace. Kornbluh described the atmosphere there as “really scary,” and “a little like Nuremberg.” Vermonters for Justice in Palestine, a local activist group, held multiple rallies on campus in support of the administration after the antisemitism complaint was publicized.
Against this backdrop, Garimella’s dismissiveness left the university’s Jewish community frustrated and angry. During a Jewish Telegraphic Agency visit to Burlington after the president’s initial statement, Jewish students and faculty said they felt like university administration was not taking their concerns seriously.
“I feel like we’re not being supported here,” Evan Siegel, a Jewish junior who is involved with student government, told JTA while sitting in off-campus housing adorned with Jewish summer camp memorabilia. “And that sucks.”
Employed as a campus tour guide, Siegel wondered, “How am I supposed to give tours and be like, ‘UVM is the best,’ when my president is being an ass?”
Other Jewish students told JTA at the time they had no intention of supporting the university financially or otherwise after they graduated, and wouldn’t advertise the fact that they were alums.
Matt Vogel, executive director of Hillel at the University of Vermont, where one of the alleged antisemitic incidents had taken place, also reluctantly played a role in the drama of the last year, after hoping he would be able to keep his focus on Hillel’s student programming. As the fall semester was starting, he sent an email home to parents reading, “Antisemitism keeps me awake at night.” Throughout the semester, Hillel also became more active in calling out antisemitism on social media.
“Just by default, we’re at the center of it,” Vogel told JTA last fall in the Hillel building, as student volunteers chopped vegetables for that evening’s Shabbat dinner in the next room. “I’ve overheard a student saying, like, a Hillel sticker on their water bottle might turn into a political conversation about Zionism in the first two seconds.”
Matt Vogel, executive director of Hillel at the University of Vermont, prepares for Shabbat in his Burlington office, October 14, 2022. Vogel praised the university for ultimately resolving its federal antisemitism complaint in April 2023 after months of tension. (Andrew Lapin/Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Soon, Kornbluh decided that the administration’s response to the allegations was unacceptable, and penned a local op-ed opposing it that was later shared by her faculty union in a show of solidarity.
“I was stunned by the tone and content” of Garimella’s letter, Kornbluh wrote in the piece. Accusing the university of “gaslighting,” she added, “I do know that one persistent rhetorical strategy of antisemites in Europe and the United States has been to say that there is no antisemitism.”
Garimella reversed course following weeks of criticism, a strongly worded letter from more than a dozen Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee and news of several high-profile antisemitic incidents nationally. In October, the university published a website intended to support Jewish students — accompanied by a new statement from Garimella, who now condemned antisemitism unequivocally.
“I have listened to members of our campus community who experience a sense of risk in fully expressing their Jewish identity,” he wrote. ”I want my message to be clear to the entire campus community: antisemitism, in any form, will not be tolerated at UVM.”
This time, Garimella pledged not only to investigate individual reports of antisemitism, but also to work to change the campus community’s approach to the issue. He committed to further anti-bias training and building a streamlined bias reporting system for students, and said the university’s diversity office would work to build and maintain “meaningful actions that ensure our Jewish students and community members feel support and care.”
After Monday’s resolution, Garimella was fully supportive of the findings of the Department of Education’s investigation.
“The resolution reflects an important step in UVM’s engagement with our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the surrounding community,” he wrote in a message to the campus. “It also reflects numerous conversations we have had with our campus Jewish community and important local and national voices on the consequential and complex issue of antisemitism.”
In response to a JTA request for comment, a university spokesperson sent copies of the letters from the president and provost. (Throughout the year, the president’s office had declined multiple JTA interview requests.)
Jewish groups, including the university Hillel, celebrated the resolution. “The President and senior leadership’s new statements today represent tangible and accountable steps forward,” Vogel told JTA in a statement. “We hope this ensures that no Jewish student or any student at UVM experiences discrimination or harassment because of their identity.”
The Hillel building at the University of Vermont in Burlington, October 14, 2022. Hillel found itself at the center of a federal antisemitism complaint against the university. (Andrew Lapin/Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Also celebrating the ruling was Jewish on Campus, a subsidiary of the World Jewish Congress and one of the groups that brought the initial complaint. “Today’s announcement is a victory for the safety and security of Jewish students,” Julia Jassey, the group’s CEO and a University of Chicago undergraduate, said in a statement.
Avi Zatz, the only University of Vermont student on the initial complaint who has made their identity public, is himself an employee of Jewish on Campus. Citing antisemitism in Vermont, Zatz recently transferred to the University of Florida — in a state that may soon pass legislation that, critics say, could harm Jewish studies on all its public campuses.
“I can’t have hoped for a better resolution,” Zatz, a junior, told JTA from his new school in Gainesville, Florida. While he said he was still glad to have left Vermont, he added, “I finally feel a sense of closure.”
Kornbluh, for her part, said the resolution was “a start,” but criticized the university for not voicing a stronger commitment to Jewish studies or meeting with Jewish faculty.
Reached by phone from Madrid, where he is studying abroad this semester, Siegel said he was “proud, determined, ready for more” following the university’s agreement.
“This resolution was really, in a respectful way, a slap in the face to the university to do better,” he said. “I, for one, am ready to get back on campus and continue my work as hard as I can.”
—
The post U. of Vermont agrees to improve antisemitism training, ending federal case and capping a tumultuous year appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Doxing Jewish and Pro-Israel Organizations Helps Antisemites Hunt Jews
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow speaks to reporters in Toronto, March 8, 2025. Photo: Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press via ZUMA Press via Reuters Connect
Lists of Jews and Jewish businesses have a grim history, particularly in Europe.
Following pressure from organizations combating antisemitism, last week, French-based mapping platform GoGoCarto removed a map cataloging more than 150 Jewish and Israeli-linked businesses in Catalonia, Spain.
Maps of Jews aren’t merely encyclopedic exercises; they are invitations to violence.
An anonymous group compiled what it called a “collaborative map of the Zionist economy in Barcelona.” The list featured kosher restaurants, a Jewish school, and multinational companies linked to Israel, such as Airbus, Microsoft, and Siemens.
Organizations fighting antisemitism warned GoGoCarto that the map violates French laws against incitement to hatred and discrimination.
Combat Antisemitism Movement’s director of European affairs argued that the map “echoes some of the darkest chapters in history, including the prelude to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.” But one needn’t look to the Nazis to realize the danger of tracking Jews.
Just last month, ISIS supporters gunned down 15 people — including a 10-year-old girl — who were attending a large Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. Organizers advertised the annual celebration publicly, including the event’s location. The Bondi terrorists used this information to kill Jews.
The threat of violence is why Jewish and pro-Israel events often refrain from publicly posting the location of their gatherings. It is also why most synagogues and Jewish schools have armed security to protect attendees. Wherever Jews gather, they are targets.
And the number of Jews that have been killed worldwide since Oct. 7, 2023, would be much higher if all the thwarted attacks had not been stopped.
For example, shortly after the Bondi massacre, Canadian authorities announced that they had arrested three individuals from Toronto for trying to kidnap women and Jews. Months earlier, in June, Canada extradited to the United States Pakistani citizen Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, after he “attempted to enter the United States to carry out a deadly terrorist attack on a Jewish center in New York City” using “semiautomatic weapons.”
But Khan didn’t have to cross the border to kill Jews and supporters of Israel. And he didn’t even have to compile a list of targets. Canadian editor of the online publication The Maple, Davide Mastracci, who has claimed that “Zionism has a stranglehold on our political system,” has already done that.
In March 2025, Mastracci created “Find IDF Soldiers,” a website dedicated to cataloging Canadians fighting in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In December, he released a follow-up, “GTA to IDF,” which lists seven schools, synagogues, and summer camps in the Greater Toronto Area that have had members serve in the IDF.
Mastracci explains that he is compiling this information because, “Canadians deserve to know who they [Canadians who have served in the IDF] are, the networks they’re a part of that may have influenced their decision to join the military and what they’ve done since returning to Canada.”
Mastracci claimed that the “information isn’t being collected and republished here to encourage any harassment of the institutions named.”
It seems that Mastracci doth protest too much.
A joint report from the Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organization found a 340 percent increase in antisemitic incidents in 2024 compared to 2022. This has included violent attacks, overnight shootings at Jewish schools, vandalized synagogues, and discrimination.
Given the explosion of antisemitism in Canada since October 2023, publishing lists of Jews and Jewish organizations associated with alleged Israeli crimes is hardly an exercise in informing the public. It’s more like throwing a lighter to an arsonist.
Even the BDS Movement, the official organization spearheading the campaign to boycott and eliminate Israel, seemed to recognize this in 2022. When activists in the Boston area launched The Mapping Project to depict “local institutional support for the colonization of Palestine,” the BDS Movement disassociated itself with the endeavor, noting the devastating effect it had on the “Palestine solidarity movement.”
Doxing Jewish and Israel-related organizations will make Jews unsafe and will link pro-Palestinian activism to Nazi tactics of the 1930s. Mastracci’s projects may not meet the threshold for criminal incitement to violence in Canada, but they are certainly tools that will help antisemites hunt Jews.
David May is a research manager and senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from the author and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow David on X @DavidSamuelMay. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
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The History of the Jews of South Florida: Antisemitism, Resilience, and Hope (PART TWO)
Congregants attend a service at Congregation B’Nai Israel in Boca Raton, Florida on October 10, 2023. Photo: GREG LOVETT/USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect
Part One of this article appeared here.
Miami Beach: Shtetl by the Sea
Despite its reputation for antisemitism in the early 1900s, Jews started coming to Miami Beach hoping to benefit from the prosperity the city had become known for.
In the 1930s, restrictive barriers to Jewish land ownership began to be removed. As a result, large numbers of Jews purchased properties from debt-ridden owners desperate to sell them. The Miami Beach Art Deco buildings of the 1930s and 1940s — many designed, built, and operated by Jews — are architectural treasures.
In 1949, the Florida Legislature passed a law ending discrimination in real estate and hotels, and the Jewish community’s development bloomed. By the 1970s, almost 80 percent of the population of Miami Beach was Jewish!
The Jewish influence on Miami Beach was tremendous. Jews were and are involved politically and in developing the tourist industry. Almost all the museums and arts organizations were started by Jews. Miami Beach has had at least 16 Jewish mayors, including the father and brother of the former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer.
Thanks to its beautiful weather, Miami Beach became a popular Jewish winter vacation spot, earning it the nickname “Shtetl by the Sea.”
Yet, in 1980, Miami Beach began to change, with rising prices and changing demographics. This led many Jews to move north to Broward and Palm Beach counties, and in particular, Boca Raton.
Today, Miami Beach’s Jewish community has been bolstered by Jewish immigrants from Latin America, Russia, and Israel, as well as Orthodox Jews from the Northeast.
Surfside, which borders on Miami Beach, is currently the area’s most Jewish neighborhood. In fact, of its 6,000 residents, almost half are Orthodox Jews.
Miami in the 1930s.
Broward County: The Little-Known Story of Sam Horvitz
By 1910, five years before Broward became a county, a Jew named Louis Brown arrived in Dania, the county’s first city. By 1923, seven Jewish families were living in Fort Lauderdale, and after a few more families moved there, the first Jewish service in Broward County was held on September 17, 1926.
The building boom in the area went bust in 1926, but the small Jewish community remained. By the second half of the 1930s, the area began to recover. The Jewish community also grew, and by 1940, there were 1,000 Jews in Broward County. Today, the city of Hollywood, in Broward County, has a robust Jewish community.
Few know the fascinating background: a Jewish family is largely responsible for the city’s growth.
In the 1920s, Sam Horvitz, a high school dropout from Cleveland, entered a contract to build sidewalks and streets for Hollywood. In the building bust of the late 1920’s, Sam purchased and eventually owned more than half the vacant land in the city. As the owner of over 25,000 lots, Horvitz began building and selling single-family homes.
When Sam Horvitz died, his son William took the reins of Hollywood Inc. and continued to build on his father’s vision. The company began extending the city westward, with carefully controlled development adhering to the concept of quality communities. Hollywood Inc. built Orangebrook Golf Estates, Hollywood Hills, Emerald Hills, Lakes of Emerald Hills, Hollywood Mall (the first enclosed mall in Florida), the Bank of Hollywood Hills, the Post Haste Shopping Center, Sheridan Mall, and the Executive Plaza of Emerald Hills.
In 1966, Maynard Abrams became Broward’s first Jewish mayor for the City of Hollywood. He was followed by many dozens of Jewish mayors, state legislators, and US Congressional representatives in Broward County.
In the 1970s, Jewish retirees began choosing Broward as their new home, and moved to retirement communities in west Broward, such as Century Village in Pembroke Pines. The large Jewish population in Broward fostered a strong sense of community and Jewish identity. Multiple synagogues opened there. In 1970, there were 40,000 Jews, and in 1990, the Jewish community of Broward peaked at 275,000.
Today, Broward County has many thriving Jewish communities, including Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Cooper City, Deerfield Beach, Hallandale Beach, Pompano Beach, Tamarac, and Weston, with over 235,000 Jews.
Palm Beach County’s Boca Raton: From One Family to Half the Population
The first known Jewish residents of Boca Raton, Florence, and Harry Brown, arrived in 1931 from St. Louis.
Restrictive and antisemitic real estate practices kept the Jewish community small during the first decades of the 1900s. By the 1960s, the Jewish population began to grow, and in 1979, the Jewish population of Boca Raton, Highland Beach, and Delray Beach was estimated at 37,000.
The opening of Interstate 95 through Boca Raton in the 1970s eased the path for Jews from the Northeast to move to South Palm Beach County. Additionally, Jews from Miami and Broward County began moving to Boca Raton in the 1970’s, a trend that continued for the next thirty years.
Today, Boca Raton’s Jewish community, which started with a single family in 1931, has grown to almost half the city’s population. There are approximately 230,000 Jews in Palm Beach County, with very large communities in Boca Raton, Delray Beach, and Boynton Beach.
One of Miami’s distinctive communities is that of Cuban Jews. With the rise of Fidel Castro in 1959, approximately 10,000 Cuban Jews came to South Florida. The foundation they laid would help Jewish immigrants who followed them integrate into the South Florida Jewish community.
The Miami area currently has the highest proportion of foreign-born Jews of any area in the United States. Jews from Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil have settled in the Miami area. There are also almost 10,000 Israelis in the Miami and Hollywood areas.
The Growth of the Orthodox Community
Recently, there has been an explosive growth of South Florida’s Orthodox Jewish Community.
South Florida is blessed with hundreds of Orthodox shuls and Chabad centers, and dozens of Orthodox schools, and yeshivas. Over 8,000 children in Orthodox schools benefit from Florida’s school voucher system. There are advanced learning Kollels, Jewish outreach centers, and numerous kosher restaurants. In the winter, Chassidim from New York, including prominent rebbes and tens of thousands of Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn, Lakewood, and Chicago, visit South Florida for days or weeks.
Many residents and visitors take for granted the thriving Jewish communities and infrastructure already in place to benefit them.
The truth is that they owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Rabbi Alexander S. Gross (1917 – March 10, 1980), who played a central role in establishing Jewish life and Torah education in South Florida.
Rabbi Gross was an American Orthodox rabbi who established the Hebrew Academy of Greater Miami, the first Orthodox Jewish day school south of Baltimore, Maryland. He began the school in a storefront with just six students in 1947.
He was a graduate of Yeshiva Torah Vodaas and a close student of the great Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, the founder of Torah U’Mesorah. Rabbi Gross believed that by giving children a strong Jewish education, he would raise the level of observance and knowledge among adults as well, thereby building vibrant, knowledgeable Jewish communities.
Rabbi Gross’ devotion was legendary. He would drive all around South Florida to bring Jewish children to Hebrew Academy, literally driving carpool for multiple families, to help ensure they received the vital Jewish education.
In time, the results of his efforts would be clear, as the following vignette demonstrates.
In 1959, due to severe financial strain, the Hebrew Academy of Miami Board of Directors had to institute an austere tuition policy. If parents didn’t pay tuition, their child would no longer be able to attend the school. One of the affected families, which was in any case not overly enthusiastic about their son attending the Jewish school, told their son, Billy, that he would no longer be able to attend Hebrew Academy.
Billy was devastated. He loved the Torah studies and the school. Sadly but gratefully, he wrote a handwritten letter to Rabbi Alexander Gross, letting him know how much he appreciated what the Hebrew Academy did for him and that he had no hard feelings towards anyone at the school.
After reading the letter, Rabbi Gross personally paid his tuition, and Billy stayed in the school. He thrived and graduated eighth grade as class valedictorian. He continued his studies in the renowned Telshe Yeshiva in Cleveland and became an accomplished Torah scholar. He returned to Florida as a rabbi and built up the North Miami Beach community. Rabbi Zev (Billy) Leff is today the rabbi of Moshav Mattisyahu in Israel and a renowned lecturer and author.
After Rabbi Gross passed away, his family was clearing out his desk and found a folder that had “my children” written outside in Yiddish. It was a list of children he personally paid tuition for, so they could stay in the Hebrew Academy and not attend public school.
After building the Hebrew Academy, Rabbi Gross looked to raise the level of Torah learning and scholarship in South Florida. Until that point, he had sent his best students out of town to study in the larger yeshivas of the Northeast. In 1974, the Talmudic College of Florida was started with the support of Miami Beach philanthropist Moshe Chaim Berkowitz. He brought Rabbi Yochanan Zweig to serve as the esteemed Rosh Yeshiva, and as a result of this step, other yeshivas, Bais Yaakovs, and Kollelim would come to be built in multiple South Florida communities.
Rabbi Alexander S. Gross, like Moses Elias Levy 130 years earlier, had a Jewish vision for Florida. Both of their visions have come true.
Rabbi Menachem Levine is the CEO of JDBY-YTT, the largest Jewish school in the Midwest. He served as Rabbi of Congregation Am Echad in San Jose, CA, from 2007 to 2020. He is a popular speaker and writes for numerous publications on Torah, Jewish History, and Contemporary Jewish Topics. Rabbi Levine’s personal website is https://thinktorah.org
A version of this article was originally published at Aish.
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Ceasefires in Name Only: How the Media Ignores Hamas and Hezbollah Violations
A Palestinian man points a weapon in the air after it was announced that Israel and Hamas agreed on the first phase of a Gaza ceasefire, in the central Gaza Strip, October 9. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Ceasefires are meant to bring relative quiet to the parties that have agreed to them. Unfortunately, Israel knows all too well that when dealing with terrorist organizations, quiet is rarely guaranteed, even after the signing of a ceasefire agreement.
It should be abundantly clear to the media that terrorist organizations are not interested in peace because this contradicts their very modus operandi. Yet the media has consistently omitted the ceasefire violations being committed by terrorist organizations, and instead has been shifting the responsibility for the lack of stability and peace onto Israel alone.
Israel has adhered to the agreements it signed with both Hamas and Hezbollah. Consistent violations by both of these terrorist organizations have resulted in Israel taking military action in Gaza and Lebanon to ensure the safety of its citizens and the security of the state. Only when the terrorist organizations have not upheld their end of the agreement as required has Israel taken action.
Graph based on data from The Long War Journal.
Graph based on data from The Long War Journal.
As of this time of writing, the body of one hostage, Ran Gvili, is still being held by terrorist organizations in Gaza. It is perhaps one of the most explicit violations of the agreement, which called for all hostages to be released within 72 hours of Israel’s withdrawal from certain areas in the Gaza Strip. While the media might be moving on to Stage 2 of the ceasefire agreement, Israel can only do so once Gvili’s body is returned.
Why not, “New blow to Gaza peace deal as Hamas still hasn’t returned the body of hostage Ran Gvili,” @IrishTimes?
Hamas hasn’t fulfilled its obligations under the ceasefire agreement. How about holding the terrorist org accountable instead of solely blaming Israel? pic.twitter.com/aHCCd666T6
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 7, 2026
Beyond the mishandling of hostages, Hamas has also violated the ceasefire by attacking the IDF 13 times, which involved sniper or RPG attacks, ambushes, detonations, storing weapons, and individual terrorist leaders advancing plots against the IDF in Gaza. Some of these violations have resulted in the deaths of IDF soldiers, underscoring that this is not a technical breach but a premeditated continuation of warfare. Terrorists have also breached the ceasefire using tunnels on five separate occasions, emerging from the underground system as an attempt to commit one of the above attacks.
Another 50 ceasefire violations come from terrorists crossing the yellow line into an area controlled by Israel, as agreed upon in stage 1. These incursions are not incidental, as many of the unauthorized crossings of the yellow line also involve terrorists seeking to ambush Israeli troops, plant explosive devices, or commit other hostile activities that pose an immediate threat to the IDF.
“Israeli fire kills three people in Gaza,” writes @Reuters.
Omitted: they were terrorists who crossed the yellow line, breaking the ceasefire.
Once again, Reuters hides the terrorism – but never misses a chance to blame Israel. pic.twitter.com/4n8oICokfm
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 4, 2025
When such violations are ignored or stripped of context, Israel’s defensive responses are falsely framed as escalations rather than obligations to protect its forces and population. Yet in reporting on the yellow line and Israel’s inevitable countermeasures, the media has more often than not omitted these critical facts and, in doing so, has distorted the reality of who is violating the ceasefire and at whose expense.
The breaking of the ceasefire is not only a danger to Israel, but also to Palestinians living in Gaza. Hamas has turned its violence inward, targeting Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel on at least two occasions. Additionally, Hamas has loaded or launched rockets on two different occasions. Most recently, the launch failed and fell inside Gaza near a hospital. These actions expose the central truth often missing from media coverage that Hamas’ refusal to disarm is not symbolic or political. It is an ongoing, tangible threat, and yet this continued militarization and the civilian danger it creates are routinely omitted from reporting.
Israel-Hezbollah Ceasefire
Graph based on data from Doron Kadosh.
While there is less information about each specific violation by Hezbollah, it is evident that the terrorist organization has no intention of abiding by the agreement by disarming and remaining beyond the Litani River. From January 2 until January 11, the IDF X account has reported seven different responses to Hezbollah violations. This includes the targeting of terrorist infrastructure, including weapons facilities and training compounds currently being used by terrorists, launch sites, and terrorists working to advance attacks or rebuild infrastructure.
Despite the glaringly obvious violations, the media has still worked tirelessly to turn a blind eye to Hezbollah’s consistent violations – reported to average seven per day in July 2025 – and the terrorist organization’s persistence in its goal of rearming, rebuilding its infrastructure, and destroying Israel has not withered.
“Israel hasn’t upheld their end of the ceasefire agreement,” according to @SkyNews‘s @YousraElbagir.
No mention whatsoever of Hezbollah’s failure to disarm or its efforts to rebuild and reassert itself in southern Lebanon in breach of the ceasefire agreement. https://t.co/0htPoft5NB pic.twitter.com/Vk0A3Hvb62
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 29, 2025
The ceasefire agreement explicitly states that Israel is allowed to practice its “inherent right of self-defense” while adhering to international law. With Hezbollah’s refusal to disarm and move beyond the Litani River as required by this agreement, Israel has every right to exercise acts of self-defense to ensure there will no longer be a threat on the northern border.
Except Hezbollah hasn’t ceased, and that’s why Israel is firing.
Not firing rockets into Israel is only a small part of Hezbollah’s ceasefire obligations. Rebuilding its forces in southern Lebanon is a violation.@CNN‘s @bencnn won’t give you the full picture. pic.twitter.com/71hEHsJcQf
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 30, 2025
Because Hezbollah is a multifaceted hybrid, deeply embedded within Lebanese society, the media’s reporting frequently minimizes or obscures the extent to which it is classified as a terrorist organization. In doing so, Hezbollah is implicitly absolved of its requirement to uphold the agreement.
Terrorist groups, @AP.
That’s the term you’re looking for. pic.twitter.com/V1WxWZYWM2— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 8, 2026
Despite the ceasefires with Hezbollah and Hamas, the threat of both terrorist groups looms as they refuse to abide by the deal, most crucially by declining to give up their power and disarm. As a result, Israel has had to take action against both terrorist organizations to restrain them and ensure the security of the state.
For the past two and a half years of war, the Western media has found any excuse to shift the blame onto Israel, and the aftermath of the ceasefires is no different. The context of terrorist groups refusing to adhere to the agreement is frequently missing from reporting. Any article that mentions the fragility of the ceasefires must include the violations by the terrorist organizations or otherwise risk obscuring the truth on the ground and covering for terrorists.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.