Released Israeli hostage, Shlomi Ziv, said his Hamas captor in Gaza told him that Hamas provided financial support to pro-Hamas groups in the US, including CUAD (Columbia University Apartheid Divest) and the Columbia University AMP/NSJP Affiliates for the Campus Encampment.
JPost Hamas kidnappers told rescued hostage Shlomi Ziv the terrorist organization had paid operatives on American campuses, according to a Monday lawsuit by October 7 victims, with the terrorists showing him articles and photographs of Columbia university protests.
In a lawsuit filed Monday to the New York Southern District Court against Within Our Lifetime and its leader Nerdeen Kiswani, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine and representative Maryam Alwan, Columbia-Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace and representative Cameron Jones, and Columbia University Apartheid Divest and lead negotiator Mahmoud Khalil, Plaintiff Ziv said that his Hamas captors referred to protests planned by the defendants when bragging about having American operatives.
The lawsuit alleged not only that Columbia SJP renewed its dormant Instagram activity three minutes before the attack and National SJP appeared to have produced propaganda material during or before the massacre, but argued that the affiliated groups been financed and supported by Hamas through organizations that the terrorist group founded.
Within Our Lifetime (WOL) has gained increased visibility since Hamas’ October 7th attack on Israel, posting support on Instagram for the Hamas invasion, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 250 hostages. Since October 7th, WOL has organized rallies across New York City, calling for people to “flood” a given location, echoing Hamas’ naming of the October 7 massacre on Israel’Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.’ The group also claims to support the pursuit of self-determination by all people of all nationalities…except for Jews.
JPost But the Hamas-funded hardline anti-Israel activist organization called Within Our Lifetime, doesn’t just stage street protests supporting Hamas, their masked activists have swarmed subway cars, demanding any “Zionists” identify themselves and reigniting a debate over anti-masking laws in New York.
Earlier, WOL protesters defaced Brooklyn’s iconic OY/YO sculpture with pro-Palestinian graffiti and stormed the museum lobby, sparking an uproar. They also flaunt symbols associated with Palestinian terror groups and have rallied against Jewish group ‘Hillel’ at Baruch College, demanding that the school eject the Jewish group from campus.
The group has spent years building its presence in New York City, becoming the leading pro-Hamas activist organization in the region, and has caused repeated controversies on the way. The pace and intensity of the turmoil have spiked since October 7th, shutting down public spaces in New York City, drawing repeated concern from elected officials and action from law enforcement as well as social media platforms.
Here’s what you need to know about the group at the center of New York City’s most volatile pro-Hamas protests.
Within Our Lifetime was established in 2015 as NYC Students for Justice in Palestine, a branch of the national campus movement, advocating for “anti-normalization” with all “Zionist organizations” and the Palestinian “right to resist.” Later that year, it criticized the pro-Palestinian movement as overly focused on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, precipitating a break with National Students for Justice in Palestine.
The group then rebranded as Within Our Lifetime, a nod to one of its protest chants, “We will free Palestine within our lifetime.”
During the rallies, protesters chant for the destruction of Israel and call to “globalize the intifada,” a reference to two uprisings against Israel, one of which was characterized by a rash of deadly suicide bombings. The group has also voiced support for terrorism against Israelis. The group’s leaders say most anti-Israel protests do not go far enough.
Within Our Lifetime is led by Nerdeen Kiswani, a Palestinian-American who grew up in Brooklyn. Kiswani drew major attention and criticism from Jewish groups in 2022 when she delivered a speech at the City University of New York Law School commencement in which she decried alleged “Zionist harassment by well-funded organizations with ties to the Israeli government and military.”
In March, Kiswani appeared at a Columbia University event where speakers praised Hamas. Kiswani also attended Columbia’s protest encampment in the spring and Within Our Lifetime urged followers to mass at that encampment and another at the City College of New York.
The following year, another leader of the group, Fatima Mohammed, delivered CUNY Law’s commencement speech, accusing Israel of “indiscriminate” murder and lauding resistance to “Zionism around the world.” The remarks were condemned as hate speech by CUNY’s chancellor and prompted congressional legislation seeking to defund CUNY. CUNY Law canceled student speakers at commencement after the uproar.
Kiswani says she has faced personal blowback because of her activism, telling the pro-Hamas website Mondoweiss in 2022 that Jewish advocacy groups and individuals including the right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro had directed their followers to criticize her.
The controversies mounted as the group held near-daily rallies across the city, sometimes shutting down traffic on major thoroughfares, resulting in dozens of arrests. Advertisements for the rallies often call on followers to “flood” a location, echoing Hamas’ name for the October 7 attack, the “Al Aqsa Flood.”
Over 1,000 anti-Israel demonstrators marched through upper Manhattan towards the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the star-studded Met Gala is in full swing — but were quickly blocked from reaching the event by dozens of cops in riot gear who began making arrests. The protesters had set out from Hunter College, where the Palestinian activist group Within Our Lifetime called for a “Day of Rage” protest to form and then march towards the Met.
The group’s targets include Jewish and non-Jewish people and institutions with only indirect ties to Israel. Within Our Lifetime posted maps on its Instagram account detailing the locations of Jewish organizations in New York City and saying they had “blood on their hands.”
Within Our Lifetime targeted the Rockefeller Christmas Tree lighting ceremony in a protest that saw demonstrators with signs bearing antisemitic tropes and swastikas.
Within Our Lifetime also targeted the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. During that event, protesters defaced the facade of the New York Public Library, causing $75,000 in damage.
In January 2025, Within Our Lifetime protested against the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, with Kiswani urging demonstrators to shout “shame” while patients looked on. The protest targeted the hospital because it had accepted a donation from billionaire investor Ken Griffin. Griffin had spoken out against Harvard students who signed a letter blaming Israel for the October 7 attack.
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Instagram permanently disabled Kiswani’s and Within Our Lifetime’s accounts in February. A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Instagram, said the accounts had been removed because they violated the platform’s community guidelines, including its “Dangerous Organizations & Individuals policy.”
The group also has been linked to antisemitic hate crimes — and is doubling down amid criticism.
In 2022, Kiswani and Mohammed led a protest during which an activist associated with the group, Saadah Masoud, beat a Jewish man. At least two other activists who have protested with the group have been imprisoned for attacking Jews. At the Brooklyn Museum protest, demonstrators harassed Jews who were walking past.
After the Brooklyn Museum protest, Within Our Lifetime urged its followers to “take autonomous action” against the museum and other cultural institutions in the city in retaliation for arrests at the rally. The group released a map marking museums with inverted red triangles, a Hamas symbol that the terror group uses to identify targets in its propaganda videos. Soon afterward, vandals defaced the homes of four Brooklyn Museum officials in the city, using the same symbol.
And the money that many of the Columbia University anti Israel protesters received from Hamas most likely came from the billions of dollars that the USA Joseph Biden Administration gave Hamas out of USA tax payers dollars.
Of course it did. And one of trump’s first moves was to cut off funding to the Palestinians, just like he did in his first term.