A new lawsuit by victims of October 7th and by a number of Israeli students at Columbia University alleges that some of the anti-Israel student groups on campus may have had foreknowledge of the devastating Hamas terrorist attack in 2023.

The bombshell lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York on Monday, was brought by nine American and Israeli citizens who were victims of the Hamas attack, including the relatives of those who were murdered by terrorists or taken hostage by them. The lawsuit was also brought by two Columbia students who have reported mistreatment at the school following the attack in which 1,200 people were killed. 

The federal lawsuit was filed against a number of anti-Israel groups including Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), and its leader and negotiator Mahmoud Khalil, who has since been detained by the U.S. government.

The lawsuit contended that the groups named in the lawsuit – including CUAD, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), and National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) – have been acting as “Hamas’s propaganda arm in New York City and on the Columbia University campus.”

CUAD is the pro-Palestine and anti-Israel group that sparked many of the student encampments at Columbia University last spring. Khalil was a lead “negotiator” for CUAD as the group occupied buildings on Columbia’s New York City campus in the wake of the deadly Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023.

The new lawsuit contended that some of the anti-Israel groups “had prior knowledge of the October 7 attack” and laid out the evidence they had in support of the shocking claim.

“As to Columbia SJP, the bases also include a highly suggestive social media post published moments before the October 7 attack began,” the new lawsuit reads. “Three minutes before Hamas began its attack on October 7, Columbia SJP posted on Instagram ‘We are back!!’ and announced its first meeting of the semester would be announced and that viewers should ‘Stay tuned.’ Before the post, Columbia SJP’s account had been dormant for months.”

The lawsuit said the basis of their belief that some of these groups had prior knowledge also included “the timing of the NSJP Toolkit’s distribution” as well as “the Toolkit’s inclusion of paraglider graphics.”

The new lawsuit argued that on the day after the Hamas attack, “AMP/NSJP distributed a manifesto that included materials that appear to have been created before October 7. The NSJP Toolkit: (i) identifies AMP/NSJP as ‘PART of’ a ‘Unity Intifada’ governed by Hamas’s ‘unified command’ of terrorist operations in Gaza; (ii) calls on AMP/NSJP’s partners and allies to organize a ‘Day of Resistance’ using specified graphics and marketing materials; and (iii) directed its allies to sign what was, effectively, a loyalty pledge to Hamas.”

The lawsuit said that AMP and NSJP sent the NSJP Toolkit to the defendants in the lawsuit, and that the defendants “acted on the AMP/NSJP’s directions.”

Victoria Coates, the vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, said that she also believes it is “100% correct” some of the pro-Hamas groups had some sort of foreknowledge of the attacks.

“This is SJP, the Students for Justice in Palestine. They have chapters in many, many – way too many – major universities. This was the chapter at Columbia University in New York City that they did suddenly, after being dormant, spring to life that night of October 6 … as literally, the attacks were taking place,” Coates said in an interview on John Solomon Reports on Tuesday. “And this is something that I've commented on repeatedly, which is, you know, how did they know? 

"How were they ready with the tents and the keffiyehs and the masks and everything they needed. And I don't know that they knew exactly what was going to happen, but they were definitely watching for a sign, and the minute it happened, they were in the streets demonstrating for Hamas. They knew exactly what to do. So this was pre-planned.”

A former CUAD leader, Khymani James, said that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and was eventually banned from campus. While CUAD initially apologized for James’s remarks, last October the group withdrew its apology and declared: “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance … Long live the Intifada.” 

CUAD had also shared a message on Instagram stating that "we are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization.”

Khalil, a leader in the pro-Palestine and anti-Israel encampments at Columbia University, was detained earlier this month by the Trump administration, with the Department of Homeland Security arguing that he “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” The People’s Forum helped organize some of the campus chaos and is now organizing protests to free Khalil.

“Following my previously signed Executive Orders, ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of Columbia University,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this month. “This is the first arrest of many to come."

Khalil’s large legal team is fighting his detention and deportation, writing in federal court that “this case concerns the government’s targeted, retaliatory detention and attempted removal of a student protestor because of his constitutionally protected speech.”