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

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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 Tartak titled, "Is Yalies4Palestine a hate 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."

ISRAELI OFFICIALS IDENTIFY SHANI LOUK'S BODY, BEHEADED BY 'SADISTIC ANIMALS'

Yale Daily News (YDN), an independent student newspaper that claims to be the oldest college daily in the country, issued an editor's note on a story that it wrote made "unsubstantiated claims that Hamas raped women."  (Getty Images (split image))

"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.

Tartak directly addressed Yale students in her column. 

"You fortunately weren’t abducted by Hamas fighters (if you’re a woman, child or elderly person), or shot or beheaded or killed in some other creative way on the spot (if you’re a man)," she wrote. "You certainly weren’t Shani Louk, the young woman with a bullet in her head depicted stripped to her underwear with her legs 'bent at unnatural angles' in the back of a pickup truck driven by the men." 

Louk, a German-Israeli citizen who was kidnapped by Hamas and paraded unconscious on the back of a truck, as seen in footage of the Oct. 7 massacre, was discovered dead and beheaded, according to Israeli government officials.

WHO IS SHANI LOUK? GERMAN-BORN WOMAN PARADED AROUND GAZA AFTER HAMAS TERROR ATTACK AT MUSIC FESTIVAL IN ISRAEL

Louk, German-Israeli citizen who was kidnapped by Hamas and paraded unconscious on the back of a truck, as seen in footage of the Oct. 7 massacre, was discovered dead and beheaded, according to Israeli government officials. (REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo)

"We are devastated to share that the body of 23-year-old German-Israeli Shani Luk was found and identified," the post read. "Shani, who was kidnapped from a music festival and tortured and paraded around Gaza by Hamas terrorists, experienced unfathomable horrors. Our hearts are broken. May her memory be a blessing."

Yale Daily News, Yalies4Palestine and Tartak did not respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital. 

However, Seth released an explainer on the editor's notes on Tuesday evening, in which she announced the retraction of both editor's notes without qualification and the original text of the two columns have been restored.

"It was never the News’ intention to minimize the brutality of Hamas’ attack against Israel," Seth wrote. "We are sorry for any unintended consequences to our readership and will ensure that such erroneous and damaging material does not make it into our content, either as opinion or as news."

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Fox News' Greg Wehner contributed to this report. 

The article was updated to include Anika Seth's explanation about the editor's notes that was published Tuesday evening.

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