A Jewish student journalist at Yale University claims a demonstrator brandishing a Palestinian flag stabbed her in the eye during a boisterous anti-Israel rally on campus Saturday evening and got away with it.
Sahar Tartak, editor-in-chief of the Yale Free Press, was covering the protest, which had attracted hundreds of students in favor of Palestinians when she claimed she was mobbed by a mob of protestors.
Tartak stated that the demonstration had been simmering for a week, with students erecting a tent encampment in the middle of campus and constructing a shrine to Palestinian terrorist Walid Daqqa. To oppose the Israeli military, the mob made a mock F-16 covered in fake blood.
According to Tartak, the activity culminated in hundreds of students converging at the plaza and screaming slogans such as “There is one solution, intifada revolution.”
Tartak and a friend went to cover the protest on Saturday night, and the crowd immediately singled them out because they were “identifiably Jewish,” she added.
“They made a human blockade in front of us and blockaded us whenever we tried to exercise our freedom of movement around the protest,” Tartak went on to say.
She and her pal eventually parted ways. Protesters formed a circle around her, yelling fiery chants and mocking her.
“One of the students, whose face was covered in a keffiyeh, took a Palestinian flag that he was holding, waved it in my face and hit my left eye,” said Tartak.
Tartak attempted to pursue the assailant, but the human roadblock prevented her from doing so because “they wanted to protect him.” Others were laughing at her, and no one tried to find him, she explained.
“He was anonymous due of the keffiyeh. The organizers encourage anonymity at these events because it provides immunity, allowing students to physically harass someone like me and get away with it,” she explained.
Sahar reported the incident to authorities, who dispatched an ambulance for her. An EMT advised her to go to the hospital.
Sahar told Fox News Digital that violence was unavoidable because the institution declined to intervene out of fear of escalation, allowing violence to escalate. She stated that no administrators were present at the protest, and campus police were not given instructions to disband it when it became violent.
“If students continue pushing the envelope, I knew this was going to happen, I just didn’t expect it to be me,” Tartak said in a statement. “I think it’s vital to recognize that violence is at the heart of this movement. It is about violence against Jews. “It’s about violence against the West.”
She condemned the protests as “mob violence.”
“So what’s going to happen, God forbid, more students get beat up, more of nothing happens, and then in a couple of years, these gangsters take over the universities,” she went on to say. “Allowing them to push the envelope is quite harmful. “I’m lucky that guy’s flag wasn’t pointy at the end.”
The Yale Police Department confirmed to Fox News Digital that it is looking into a complaint of an attack on Beinecke Plaza during a demonstration.
“The university does not tolerate violence, threats, harassment, or intimidation of members of our community, and is providing support to a student who made the report,” the department stated in a statement.
Earlier Sunday, President Salovey issued a statement recognizing accusations of “egregious behavior” during the demonstration.
“We do not agree on everything, but we all have a responsibility to do our part in fostering a community in which we can have open, civil discussions about any topic, no matter how complex and how difficult,” Salovey said in a statement. “As members of a university committed to learning and the search for truth, we can do no less.”
Saturday’s protests come after protestors at Columbia University were heard yelling pro-Hamas slogans, resulting in over a hundred arrests as they set up an encampment on campus Thursday and Friday.
In recent months, such demonstrations have exploded throughout college campuses in protest of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which is in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and kidnapped approximately 240.
Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry estimates that the battle has killed at least 34,097 Palestinians and injured another 76,980, while Israel disputes these figures. The ministry’s count includes both combatants and civilians.