Yale newspaper censors piece by pro-Israel writer: 'Unsubstantiated claims that Hamas raped women'

Yale Daily News (YDN), the independent student newspaper and oldest college daily in the country, issued an editor's note on a pro-Israel column over claims it made "unsubstantiated claims that Hamas raped women."

An Oct. 12 column by Yale student Sahar Tarak titled, "Is Yalies4Palestine a hage group?" was hit with an editor's note on Oct. 25, reading, "This column has been edited to remove unsubstantiated claims that Hamas raped women and beheaded men." 

Yalies4Palestine is a student group that describes itself as "organizing Yale's campus community to support the human rights and freedom of the Palestinian people" on its Instagram page.

The piece by Tartak still contains lines about beheadings by Hamas and condemning the "barbarism" that was carried out by "terrorists from Gaza who seemed intent on killing as many Jews as possible."

"Yes, they kidnapped children," she wrote. "Yes, they cheered the whole time. It’s all on video. Over 1,200 are dead, not to mention those kidnapped and maimed. This is terror, and Hamas is a designated terrorist group — as described by the United States, European Union and dozens of other countries."

There have been multiple reports that Hamas terrorists committed rape during their rampage. Israel released footage of one captured attacker who said they were given permission to rape the corpse of a girl, according to The Times of Israel. NBC News reported on "signs of rape" in videos of the attack presented to journalists last week. Military forensic teams in Israel also said they found signs of torture and rape among the victims, according to Reuters.