‘I Have No Idea, To Be Honest’: Columbia Encampment Organizer Mahmoud Khalil Says It’s Unclear Whether Hamas Targeted Civilians on Oct 7
'I wouldn't rule out that Hamas targeted civilians, but I wouldn't confirm it either,' Khalil said
Mahmoud Khalil (Free Beacon)
Zach Kessel
April 7, 2026
Columbia University encampment leader Mahmoud Khalil said in an interview that it's unclear whether Hamas targeted civilians in its Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel. Hamas is widely understood to have done so.
"I wouldn’t rule out that Hamas targeted civilians, but I wouldn’t confirm it either," Khalil told the Forward in a profile published Tuesday. "That’s my position on this."
Khalil, a Syrian native and Algerian national who served as a negotiator for the Columbia University Apartheid Divest movement and whom the Trump administration has long attempted to deport, spent a large portion of the interview casting doubt on the idea that the terror group sought to massacre Israeli civilians—a conclusion that generally anti-Israel organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch drew in their own reports on the attack.
"I wouldn’t say Hamas were saints or angels and did not commit any crimes," Khalil said. "The fact that civilians were caught up in such violence and the killing means that there were crimes committed, and Hamas has a responsibility for that."
https://freebeacon.com/israel/columbia-encampment-organizer-mahmoud-khalil-says-its-unclear-whether-hamas-targeted-civilians-on-oct-7/
