Olivia Lynch

Olivia Lynch’s Participation in the Pro-Hamas Encampment at Columbia University (Columbia) in 2024 & Ripping Down a Hostage Poster in 2023

Olivia Lynch participated in the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia in mid-2024. She also ripped down a poster raising awareness of Israeli civilians kidnapped by Hamas terrorists in late 2023. She promoted hatred of Israel while tearing down the poster.

Hamas kidnapped the civilians, including women, children and the elderly, during a series of terror atrocities and war crimes that left over 1,200 Israelis dead, hundreds kidnapped and thousands wounded. Hamas executed the terror attacks on October 7, 2023. Other Hamas war crimes included mass murder, torture, rape and beheadings. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.”

In November 2023, Lynch was listed as an “After School Guide” at Wild Ferns Nature Program in Brooklyn, New York, since October 2022. Lynch was reportedly fired from her job at Wild Ferns in November 2023.

In November 2023, Lynch’s Wild Ferns bio said she was “an artist and educator” who was “entering her fourth year of teaching.”

In November 2023, Lynch’s LinkedIn profile said she was an “Artist, Historian, Early Childhood-Educator” and that she graduated from Sarah Lawrence College (Sarah Lawrence) with a bachelor’s degree in “Art/Art Studies, German Language” in 2019.

Lynch’s LinkedIn said she was located in Brooklyn, New York.

Ripping Down Posters of Israeli Civilians Kidnapped by Hamas

In November 2023, a few weeks after Hamas terror attacks against Israel, Lynch ripped down [00:00:02] a poster meant to raise awareness of Israeli civilians kidnapped by Hamas and taken to Gaza.

The incident reportedly happened in Brooklyn, New York.

When confronted by the individual filming the incident and asked why she was tearing down the poster, Lynch showed [00:00:02] her middle finger and laughed [00:00:08], saying [00:00:23]: “F**k Israel! F**k you! F**k your propaganda!”

Olivia Lynch, Sarah Lawrence College, Tore Down Posters of Israeli Hostages

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.

As of December 25, 2023, Hamas had fired over 10,600 missiles from Gaza at Israeli communities, with Hamas claiming 5,000 the day it launched the attack. While Hamas was the main group involved, members of other terror groups also joined in the atrocities.

Many Palestinian civilians, including women and children, also participated in the attack. In several instances, Gazans who worked in the targeted Israeli communities gave intelligence to Hamas on where to strike.

In a December 2023 poll, 57% of Gazans and 82% of Palestinians in the West Bank supported the terror attacks. 42% of Gazans were supportive of Hamas rule, up from 38% before the attacks, and 44% in the West Bank supported Hamas, up from 12%.

Hamas began by launching thousands of rockets at Israel and using motorized paragliders “to infiltrate Israeli territory and secure terrain.” Terrorist ground forces destroyed parts of the border fence with Gaza, murdering and kidnapping soldiers.

Terrorists then turned their attention to 22 communities around Gaza, where they went house to house to savagely murder, mutilate and kidnap anyone they found. They executed children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children.

Terrorists beheaded children and babies, and massacred entire families, burning some alive who hid in their homes. Hamas terrorists kicked around the heads of beheaded victims like soccer balls. Israelis as young as an infant of nine months and as old as 85 were kidnapped and taken forcibly to Gaza. Hamas has not allowed the Red Cross access to the hostages.

Over 360 unarmed young men and women were surrounded and slaughtered at one music festival alone. Bodies were publicly desecrated, with some dragged through the streets of Gaza, then beheaded.

Women were raped next to the bodies of dead friends. Some were raped and then shot in the head. Others, including young girls, were raped and murdered or mutilated in other ways. Israeli officials opened an unprecedented investigation into the widespread sexual assault. Forensic analysis of corpses showed evidence of torture and rape. Hamas terrorists said they were given explicit orders to carry out the atrocities, including chopping off legs and raping the corpses of murdered victims.

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.

Hamas intentionally targeted youth centers and elementary schools to execute and kidnap children. They also took stimulant drugs to give added energy to murder and maim. Nazis also took drugs during World War II to fuel their anti-Semitic massacres.

The atrocities were acknowledged as the worst single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, including by U.S. President Joe Biden, who also compared Hamas to ISIS. Hamas attacked on the annual holiday of Simchat Torah, which that year was on Shabbat, the weekly Jewish Sabbath.

The Hamas atrocities against Israeli civilians are crimes against humanity according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The mass murder generated great sympathy for Israel from many countries but led to countless celebrations among Palestinians and anti-Israel organizations in America that back the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Hamas called the October 7, 2023 terror attacks “Al-Aqsa Flood,” a reference to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The allegation that Jews “threaten” to destroy the mosque has been a pretext for Arab attacks on Jews long before Israel was founded in 1948. Such propaganda has led to multiple periods of violence against Israeli civilians.

Hamas is a designated terrorist organization founded in 1987 that is dedicated to destroying Israel and killing Jews. Since 2001, Hamas has launched thousands of rockets at Israel and on October 7, 2023, Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped over 200 hostages, including children and the elderly.

Participation in the Pro-Hamas Encampment at Columbia

On April 18, 2024, Lynch featured [slide 2] in a photo posted on Instagram taken at the encampment. Lynch can be seen in the lower left center of the photo, wearing a thick headband.

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.