The FBI and law enforcement in Colorado are investigating a possible act of terrorism after multiple people attending a weekly pro-Israel gathering in Boulder to honor hostages kidnapped by Hamas were attacked by a suspect seen throwing Molotov cocktails in their direction. 

FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X that the bureau was “fully investigating” what he described as a “targeted terror attack” in Boulder on Sunday, while FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said they were probing the incident as an “act of terror, and targeted violence” while asking for anyone with information to contact the bureau.

One person was arrested after throwing a Molotov cocktail towards the pro-Israel demonstrators, according to Boulder Police Chief Steve Redfearn. Speaking to reporters from the scene of the attack, Redfearn said authorities were called to the area responding to calls “that people were being set on fire” by “a man with a weapon.” 

Redfearn also said that victims, attendees of the weekly Boulder Run for Their Lives event calling for the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza, had “injuries consistent with burns and other injuries,” though he could not provide an estimate for the number of individuals who were harmed in the attack. 

He warned that some of those injuries could be life threatening. At a Sunday evening press conference, Redfearn said the victims ranged in age from 67 to 88 years old, “at least one” of whom “was very seriously injured, probably safe to say, [in] critical condition.” The 88 year old victim fled Nazi persecution in Europe, Rabbi Yisroel Wilhelm, the Chabad director at the University of Colorado Boulder, told CBS Colorado.

At a press conference Sunday, FBI Denver Special Agent in Charge Mike Michalek identified the suspect as Mohamed Sabry Soliman. Fox News reported that Soliman is an “Egyptian national in the U.S. illegally as a visa overstay who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration,” citing senior Department of Homeland Security officials. 

Soliman arrived in the U.S. in August 2022 on a visa that expired in February 2023, filing a claim with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in September 2022 for a work visa that was approved for a two-year period in March 2023. He remained in the U.S. illegally despite his work authorization expiring in March of this year.

Videos circulating on social media of the attack showed Soliman shouting “end Zionists.”

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, said in a post on X that he was “closely monitoring the situation in Boulder” and said that his state was working “with local and federal law enforcement to support this investigation.”

In a second statement on his personal account, Polis wrote that, “As the American Jewish community continues to reel from the horrific antisemitic murders in Washington, D.C., it is unfathomable that the Jewish community is facing another terror attack here in Boulder, on the eve of the holiday of Shavuot no less.”

“Several individuals were brutally attacked while peacefully marching to draw attention to the plight of the hostages who have been held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza for 604 days. I condemn this vicious act of terrorism, and pray for the recovery of the victims,” he continued.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), who is running to replace the term-limited Polis, described the incident as a “horrifying terror attack” in a statement posted to X. “My thoughts are with the victims of the horrifying terror attack that occurred this afternoon in Boulder. Hate and violence of any kind will not be tolerated in Colorado,” Bennet wrote.

Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) wrote on the platform that, “Hate of any kind has no home in Colorado. We’re monitoring the reports of a horrific terror attack in Boulder this afternoon. Our thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) also said that he was “closely monitoring the situation in Boulder,” adding, “This is horrifying, and this cannot continue. We must stand up to antisemitism.”

A White House official said late Sunday that President Donald Trump “has been briefed” on the attack.

The attack comes less than two weeks after the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers attending an American Jewish Committee event in Washington. The alleged shooter yelled “Free Palestine” shortly after committing the crime.

In April, during the first night of Passover, an arsonist tried to burn down Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence. The perpetrator cited the governor’s support for Israel as his motive.   

Concerned with a “persistent and pernicious pattern of antisemitism” at the American Psychological Association, the preeminent professional organization for American psychologists, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) is urging the body’s leadership to investigate antisemitism within its ranks and better respond to the concerns of Jewish members.

“I have spoken directly with whistleblowers — many of them longtime APA members — who accuse the organization of enabling a hostile environment,” Torres wrote in a letter, obtained by Jewish Insider, that he sent to the APA’s president and president-elect on Wednesday. “These incidents collectively suggest that the APA has not only been dismissive of the legitimate grievances of Jewish psychologists but also permissive of content that traffics in malicious falsehoods against Zionism, Israel, and the Jewish community.”

Torres’ letter comes as the mental health field grapples with an antisemitism problem that has grown more acute after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. The Association of Jewish Psychologists said in 2023 that it was “deeply disappointed and terribly saddened” by the APA’s actions in the aftermath of Oct. 7. 

Torres reported that Jewish and pro-Israel psychologists have been harassed on APA-sponsored listservs, including one email with the phrase “kudos to Hamas,” according to conversations he had with APA members, and that divisions within the organization have “issued politicized and inflammatory statements” accusing Israel of genocide, while “suppressing dissenting academic voices.” 

Torres urged the APA to conduct an independent investigation into antisemitism across its affiliated divisions and listservs; to reform accreditation of continuing education programs “to ensure the APA is not lending institutional legitimacy to bigotry”; to enforce “clear standards for respectful discourse,” including “protections for Zionist Jews”; and to make sure that Jews are represented as the APA works to address antisemitism. 

“The APA’s legitimacy as a scientific and professional institution is at stake,” Torres wrote, if the body does not take action. 

A spokesperson for the APA confirmed that the organization received the letter and that they will reach out to Torres to discuss it.

“In the meantime, I can assure you that the American Psychological Association is categorically not an antisemitic organization,” Kim Mills, APA’s senior director for strategic external communications and public affairs, said.  

One of Hamas’ top three sources of funding is the U.K., where it is a banned terrorist organization, an investigation from Israel’s Channel 12 found. That funding includes 25% of Hamas’ donors from non-state actors, as well as tens of millions of dollars from the government of the U.K. to a UNICEF program whose beneficiaries are determined by Hamas.

The U.K., France and Canada threatened Israel last week with “concrete actions” if it does not lift restrictions on humanitarian aid and work with United Nations agencies to distribute it.

The U.K., Canada and the European Union — of which France is a member— as well as Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Mauritius and Croatia, sponsored a project through UNICEF, the U.N. Children’s Emergency Fund, for which a Hamas-run ministry provides a list of people to receive funding.

The program provides cash payments of $200-$300 per month to 546,000 needy people in Gaza. UNICEF said that it works with a “beneficiary list from the MoSD,” meaning the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Social Development, to determine who receives the cash. The program uses a digital platform funded by USAID to distribute the cash. UNICEF published an update on the program as recently as November 2024. 

MoSD is led by Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’ politburo, designated a “senior Hamas official” by the U.S. Treasury Department. 

A 2022 document from the U.K. Foreign Office, uncovered by NGO Monitor, showed that London was aware of Hamas’ involvement with the program and that it had the potential for “severe” reputational damage. 

“The cash assistance component will be implemented in coordination with the Ministry of Social Development MoSD. The MoSD in Gaza is affiliated with the de facto authorities and thus UK Aid can be linked directly or indirectly with supporting the de facto authority (Hamas) in Gaza which is part of a proscribed group,” the document reads.

The U.K. gave about $23.1 million to UNICEF projects in the West Bank and Gaza in 2024, and $4.8 million in 2023. 

NGO Monitor’s legal Advisor, Anne Herzberg, noted that it is unclear how much of that funding went to the Gaza cash program.

“There is very little detail from the U.K. side about how much is going in, what oversight is in place, what exactly they are doing to mitigate the risk” of money going to Hamas, Herzberg told Jewish Insider on Sunday. “A lot of countries are giving funds to the U.N. and just leave it in their hands.” 

Herzberg said that while a lot of attention has gone to UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, which was recently banned from Israel after some of its employees participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, “UNRWA is just the tip of the iceberg, because 13 U.N. agencies are operating in Gaza. There is very little information into how these other U.N. agencies are operating.” 

“Aid diversion is the main problem and why there have been so many issues with humanitarian aid in Gaza,” she said. “It’s inconceivable to me that these governments refuse to deal with this issue. They claim they want to help Palestinians, to end the conflict and bring peace, yet they don’t want to tackle this issue.” 

Beyond government aid going to Hamas, what qualifies the U.K. as the leading non-Muslim country funding Hamas is nongovernmental contributions, Channel 12 reported.

In 2001, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi founded the Union of Good, a coalition of 50 Islamist charities with connections to Hamas and other proscribed terrorist groups. The group raised hundreds of millions of dollars for Hamas during the Second Intifada.

The organization was banned in the U.S. and U.K., and Qaradawi, who is Egyptian and lives in Doha, Qatar, has been barred from the U.S., U.K. and France.  

Yet the organizations making up the Union of Good continued their fundraising activities.

The Channel 12 report names specific Hamas operatives based in the U.K., including Zahar Birawi, who is the head of the Palestinian Return Center in London, leads Hamas activities in Great Britain and has been instrumental in organizing weekly anti-Israel protests in London. Issam Yusef Mustafa, a former member of the Hamas politburo, is a U.K. citizen and is the biggest fundraiser for Hamas in Europe as the head of “Interpal,” a former Union of Good group sanctioned by the U.S. and Israel.

Herzberg explained that many of the organizations funneling money to Hamas are registered as businesses so they can avoid scrutiny from the Charity Commission.

“The monitoring in the U.K. does not seem as robust as what you see in the U.S., where there are many more investigations going on at the governmental level and more reporting, even though the U.K. government says it has robust control in its laws,” Herzberg said. “It’s unclear how those laws are being enforced.” 

Erez Noy, a former Shin Bet official dealing with terror funding, told Channel 12 that “Hamas is strong in Britain because over the years they got used to being able to do almost anything they want there, compared to other countries in Europe … For years, Britain, for whatever reason, did not handle preventing and taking care of these systems [to fund terror]. When Hamas realizes there is a permissive arena, it tests the limits.” 

Hamas petitioned the U.K. last month to be removed from the country’s list of banned terrorist organizations. 

According to Udi Levy, the former head of the Mossad’s department for fighting terrorism funding, “these are businesses that raise funds under the guise of humanitarian aid, and reach Hamas in Gaza, Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and anywhere else around the world.”

Levy told Channel 12 that “total victory over Hamas is not just in the Gaza Strip. We are making a huge mistake because even if we kill every last ‘soldier’ in Gaza, there is still a massive Hamas infrastructure that will continue to act and even rehabilitate its activities, unless we start taking care of it.” 

The British Embassy in Israel said in response to a query from JI that “Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organization in the U.K. and funding or supporting it is a crime. We categorically reject the false and irresponsible allegations in the Channel 12 investigation that the UK Government funds Hamas run agencies in Gaza. No UK funding was provided to the Ministry of Social Development in Gaza … We are clear that Hamas must play no role in the future of Gaza. FCDO [the Foreign Office] conducted a thorough due diligence assessment of UNICEF, and we identify how U.K. funds are transferred until they reach the final beneficiaries.”

The embassy interpreted the claim made by the U.K. Foreign Office that “U.K. Aid can be linked directly or indirectly with supporting the de facto authority (Hamas) in Gaza which is part of a proscribed group,” as referring to the Ministry of Social Development in Ramallah run by the Palestinian Authority.

In addition, the embassy stated that it does “not recognize the claim that 25% of Hamas’s non-state funding comes from the U.K. To our knowledge, no official Israeli body has ever made such a claim.” 

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee has launched an investigation into American Muslims for Palestine and its activities on college campuses, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) announced on Thursday.

Cassidy, the HELP committee’s chairman, revealed the probe while delivering his opening statement at the panel’s hearing on campus antisemitism. The news marks the first time the Senate has investigated the organization. American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) is an anti-Israel nonprofit that bolsters National Students for Justice in Palestine, which in turn supports SJP groups on campuses nationwide.

“Today, as chair of the HELP committee, I launched an investigation into the American Muslims for Palestine, demanding answers about their activities on college campuses. This group’s leaders have ties to Hamas and helped create the group Students for Justice in Palestine. I also requested information from the Justice Department and several universities on these groups. We must continue to build upon these efforts,” Cassidy said. 

The Louisiana senator sent letters on Wednesday evening to AMP Chairman Hatem Bazian, as well as Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel. 

In his letter to Patel and Bondi, Cassidy requested answers on what their respective agencies were doing to “investigate and address threats posed by outside groups to safety on college campuses.” His letter to Bazian asks for clarification about AMP’s “past or present ties to groups associated with the Foreign Terrorist Organization Hamas.”

Members of AMP’s leadership, including Bazian, have faced scrutiny over their ties to now-defunct charities including the Islamic Association for Palestine and the Holy Land Foundation, which were shut down after the federal government found they had provided financial support to Hamas. 

Bazian, critics note, was a frequent speaker at Islamic Association for Palestine conferences. He also founded National SJP.

As part of the investigation, Cassidy also sent letters to the presidents of The George Washington University, University of California Los Angeles, Columbia University and its affiliate Barnard College requesting information about SJP and AMP activities on their campuses.

In the previous Congress, the House Ways and Means Committee probed AMP and urged the Internal Revenue Service to revoke its tax-exempt status. The Virginia attorney general is also investigating AMP and seeking to uncover its private donor list. 

AAMP is also facing an ongoing lawsuit by the family of David Boim, an American killed in a Hamas terrorist attack in the West Bank in 1996. Another civil suit filed last year accuses the group of providing material support for Hamas in violation of federal law.

The Boim case alleges that AMP is an “alter ego” of the Islamic Association for Palestine and the Holy Land Foundation and is responsible for the civil judgement against them.