Pro-Palestinian protesters near Bryant Park in New York City, November 9, 2023. (Luke Tress)

(New York Jewish Week) – Pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on the Upper East Side during a rally on Monday, accusing the hospital of abetting genocide.

The protest was led by Nerdeen Kiswani, who can be seen on video falsely claiming that there is no evidence that Hamas committed sexual atrocities during its Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. She said reports of rape and extreme sexual violence by Hamas militants were “tropes” used by “colonial feminists” to “justify” Israel’s invasion and bombing of Gaza, which she described as an “ongoing genocide.” Kiswani said there “hasn’t actually been proof ” of the sexual assaults, “just more lies,” while, she claimed, “there are actually Palestinian women, men and children who have been sexually assaulted and abused by the Israeli occupation forces for decades.”

In fact, there is evidence that Hamas committed sexual atrocities. That proof includes accounts from eyewitnesses who saw Hamas fighters gang-rape and murder women; reports from Israel’s first responders and forensics teams who found women’s bodies face down and bloodied from the waist down, with broken pelvises and broken legs; and a New York Times investigation citing videos, photos and 150 interviews as evidence that Hamas sexually assaulted or mutilated 30 women and girls. Some of the victims had been shot in the vagina or had nails driven into their genital areas, the Times said. Jewish activists have decried the unwillingness of many women’s organizations and others to believe or condemn the sexual atrocities committed by Hamas despite the evidence.

On video from Monday’s protests, Kiswani can be seen leading hundreds of people shouting outside Memorial Sloan Kettering, with delegations of healthcare workers among the demonstrators. The event was organized by a hardline pro-Palestinian group, Within Our Lifetime, which Kiswani leads, that has echoed Hamas talking points and routinely calls for Israel’s destruction.

Kiswani made news several years ago, when, as a student at the City of New York Law School, she made statements critical of Israel and was then chosen to speak at the school’s commencement. A different CUNY Law student made headlines last year when she delivered an anti-Israeli speech at the school’s graduation.

On Monday, Kiswani called the hospital “another complicit institution” as the protesters walked past, with the crowd erupting in shouts of “Shame.”

“Make sure they hear you, they’re in the windows,” Kiswani told the crowd, before leading the rally in chants of, “MSK, shame on you, you support genocide too.”

Video of the incident showed what appeared to be children watching the protest from within the hospital.

Sloan Kettering has worked on collaborations with Rambam Medical Center and the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. Rambam’s fundraising arm honored a Sloan Kettering department chair in 2018.

Anti-Israel protesters in New York City and elsewhere have targeted organizations with tenuous links to Israel. Protesters have caused disruptions in the city by blocking bridges and tunnels, targeting transportation hubs and interrupting holiday events. In November, Within Our Lifetime published a map including the locations of Jewish organizations in the city under the headline “Know your enemy.”

Monday’s rally was held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Organizers billed Monday’s rally as “Flood Manhattan for Gaza MLK Day March for Healthcare,” echoing the name Hamas gave to its Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, “Al-Aqsa Flood.”

Within Our Lifetime endorsed the Oct. 7 attack, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Kiswani has posted open support for Hamas on social media.

The group marches with banners reading “By any means necessary” and leads chants of “Globalize the intifada” during regular events that draw thousands, and calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and the targeting of “Zionists” worldwide.

The Forward contributed to this article, which originally appeared on JTA.org.

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