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Derecka Purnell
Derecka Purnell participated in the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia University (Columbia) in April 2024. She has also expressed support for terrorists, denied Hamas war crimes and spread hatred of Israel.
Purnell is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
On April 22, 2024, Purnell was featured in a post on X, participating in the encampment at Columbia.
In November 2023, Purnell wrote on X that she was "Very proud to stand on the stairs of Columbia University...to oppose university’s decision to suspend" the pro-Hamas campus groups Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).
As of February 2025, Purnell’s personal website said she was an "organizer, cultural worker, movement lawyer."
Also as of February 2025, Purnell was listed online as a 2021-2024 scholar-in-residence at Columbia Law School (Columbia Law).
As of the same date, Purnell was listed online as having received a JD from Harvard Law School (Harvard Law). Her Facebook About page said she attended Harvard Law in 2013-2017.
As of the same date, Purnell was listed online as being located in Washington, D.C.
On April 17, 2024, Columbia students and anti-Israel activists set up a pro-Hamas “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the university's main lawn. Many participants were arrested and the encampment featured multiple violent incidents, including taking over a campus building and taking a university worker hostage.
Activists protested Israel’s war against Hamas and demanded that Columbia “divest from companies and institutions that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation…”
The action had reportedly been planned for months and was organized by the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition. The encampment was also organized by Columbia’s banned pro-Hamas activist group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the university chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Activists reportedly received training from National SJP and other anti-Israel organizations.
Among the encampment leaders was Columbia student Khymani James who had said [00:00:25]: “Zionists…They are nazis!... They’re supporters of genocide! Why would we want people who are supporters of genocide to live?... Be glad, be grateful that I am not just going out and murdering Zionists.” Aidan Parisi, another encampment leader, responded to Columbia’s demand to disband the encampment by declaring online that: “COLUMBIA WILL BURN.”
The encampment was forcibly dismantled at the directive of Columbia’s president and administration. The NYPD [New York Police Department] entered the area, cleared the encampment and arrested more than 100 protestors, approximately 80 of whom were Columbia students. The students were charged with trespassing and suspended from Columbia indefinitely.
The next day, activists created a new encampment. When divestment negotiations with Columbia failed, protesters illegally forced their way into the university’s Hamilton Hall on April 30, 2024. They smashed [00:00:55] through a glass-paneled door, broke security cameras, threw university property out of the windows and unfurled [00:00:01] a banner in the building’s wall that read: “INTIFADA,” a term in Arabic for uprising or insurrection that carries the connotation of violence.
While barricading themselves in the building, agitators kept three Columbia custodians hostage and stopped them from leaving. When the NYPD raided and dismantled the encampment a second time, they arrested more than 100 students, nearly half of whom were reportedly not affiliated with Columbia.
NYPD shared on Twitter photos of objects the police found in Hamilton Hall. These included knives, hammers, gas masks, ropes and a pamphlet that read [video 1]: “...DISRUPT/RECLAIM/DESTROY zionist business interests everywhere! DEATH TO ISRAELI REAL STATE! DEATH TO AMERICA!...LONG LIVE THE INTIFADA!”
Just outside the encampment area, Jewish students were called [slide 2]: “Uncultured a** b**ches!” and were told to “Go back to Europe!” Activists also said [slide 3] to them: “Yahoodim [Jews], yahoodi [Jew], f**k you!” and “Stop killing children!” as they walked from campus to their dorm rooms.
Also just outside the encampment area, anti-Israel activists chanted [slide 5]: “Ya Hamas, ya habib, odrob, odrob Tel Aviv! [Oh Hamas, oh loved one, strike, strike Tel Aviv!]”, a chant that celebrates Hamas rocket attacks against Israel.
An activist just outside the encampment area held [photo 4] a sign that said, referring to the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing: “AL-QASAM’S NEXT TARGETS.” Her sign contained an arrow pointing to a pro-Israel crowd.
On May 31, 2024, Columbia SJP announced that its activists had set up a third encampment at the university. At the encampment, protesters reportedly displayed on a big screen a video that portrayed Hamas as a peace-seeking organization and made a sign that contained an inverted red triangle, a symbol in support of Hamas.
The Columbia encampment reportedly inspired a wave of protest encampments across North American campuses, where pro-Israel students were blocked or restricted from campus facilities. Jewish students were reportedly harassed in several other ways.
The encampment was one of over 140 pro-Hamas and anti-Israel college encampments set up in North America, and over 20 more globally, in the spring of 2024. The first began on April 17, 2024, at Columbia University. The encampments were unofficially known as the “student intifada,” borrowing a term associated with terrorist violence.
Protesters harassed Jewish students, blocked Jews from campus facilities and shouted anti-Semitic slogans. They occupied campus grounds, in many cases illegally, caused property damage, violently took over buildings, celebrated terrorism and promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Activists set up encampments to oppose Israel’s right to wage war against the Hamas terror group following October 7, 2023, when Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 people, including 32 American and 8 Canadian citizens. Hamas also kidnapped 252 people, including 11 Americans and the bodies of 2 murdered Canadians. As of May 26, 2024, 125 hostages remained in Hamas captivity.
For more information on the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
On October 7, 2023, Purnell posted on X: “rooting for everyone resisting oppression.”
Among Palestinians and anti-Israel activists, the term “resistance” is a euphemism for nationalistic terror and is used to glorify and encourage anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence.
On Saturday, October 7, 2023, approximately 2,900 heavily armed Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border with Gaza. They executed numerous war crimes on civilians, including mass murder, beheadings of children, rape of men and women, torture, kidnappings and mutilation.
Hamas broadcast videos of their butchery on social media, often to victims’ accounts for families to see. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.” As of November 10, 2023, approximately 1,200 Israelis, the vast majority of them civilians, were murdered during the attacks. Hamas kidnapped 242 Israelis, including at least 30 children. At least 3,500 people were wounded, many severely.
A terrorist detained by Israel admitted he raped an Israeli woman when he broke into a kibbutz house during the October 7, 2023 attack. In March 2024, a former hostage of Hamas publicly stated she was sexually abused and tortured while in captivity.
For more information on the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
On October 12, 2023, Purnell posted on X: "Organizers of all backgrounds have asked how to condemn the misinformation regarding Palestinian resistance while navigating accusations of supporting rapes and the beheading of babies—an unsubstantiated, debunked claim that even President Joe Biden repeated."
On October 7, 2023, Hamas raped both women and men. Some were raped and murdered or mutilated. Hamas terrorists said they were given explicit orders to carry out those atrocities on both live victims and corpses.
Hamas terrorists murdered Israeli Jewish babies during its October 7, 2023, terror attacks. Some of the babies were beheaded and some were murdered in front of their parents.
Denial of the Hamas war crimes of October 7, 2023, among anti-Israel activists has been likened to Holocaust denial among neo-Nazis.
On October 17, 2023, Purnell posted on X, referring to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948: "ensuring all Palestinians a right to return and to receive just compensation for property and lives stolen, destroyed, and damaged in one of the greatest colonial crimes of the twentieth century."
The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel.
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by pro-terror activist Omar Barghouti in 2005 to turn “Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.” Barghouti has also called for Israel's destruction and the BDS movement demands would result in that same goal.
BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.
The movement’s most notable achievement has been infiltrating university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments propose resolutions to boycott or divestment from Israel or Israeli-affiliated entities. BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents and pro-terror activism on campus.
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