Islamophobia During the Gaza War

Anti-Muslim bias targets Muslims or people perceived to be Muslim through prejudice, discrimination, marginalization, or hostility, including stereotypes portraying them as outsiders or threats.[1] Its forms include slurs, conflating Muslims with terrorism, mosque vandalism, profiling, hate crimes, online harassment, and employment discrimination.[1] During the Gaza war, reported manifestations extended from interpersonal abuse and attacks on religious institutions to concerns about safety and expression in schools and universities.[4][5]

Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian identities overlap in some cases but are not interchangeable: people may experience hostility because of religion, ethnicity, national origin, or a combination of these characteristics.[2] Anti-Arab discrimination can target Arabs because they are Arab rather than because they are perceived as Muslim; similarly, Sikhs can experience discrimination based on their own identity as well as mistaken perceptions of their religion.[2] The U.S. national strategy addressing Islamophobia and anti-Arab hate treated these distinctions as important while identifying violence against Palestinian Americans among its central examples.[2]

The wartime context also involved threats to Jewish communities and a rise in antisemitism.[3][6] Federal community-safety responses in the United States addressed antisemitic, anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian, and anti-Muslim hate together, including meetings, public statements, and hate-crime prosecutions.[7] In Germany, interfaith initiatives and examples of Jewish–Muslim solidarity developed alongside reports of insecurity and exclusion.[8]

Threats against Muslim and Jewish communities increased after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and during the subsequent war.[3][6] Reports from this period described abuse that assigned collective responsibility to Muslims or Palestinians for Hamas’s violence, including online stereotyping and dehumanization.[9] A U.S. national strategy subsequently warned that many people peacefully expressing support for Palestinian civilians had been falsely accused of supporting Hamas.[2]

A prominent early U.S. case was the October 14, 2023 attack on Hanaan Shahin and her six-year-old son, Wadea Al-Fayoume, by their landlord at their home in Plainfield, Illinois.[6] Wadea died and his mother was seriously injured; authorities identified anti-Muslim hatred and the Israel–Hamas war as motivations for the attack.[6] A Senate resolution adopted on September 24, 2024 recorded that the child had been stabbed 26 times, that a grand jury had indicted the perpetrator for a hate crime, and that a federal hate-crimes investigation had been opened.[10] The attacker was convicted in 2025 of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and hate-crime charges.[1]

Other reported assaults followed during October and November 2023.[6] On October 18, a Muslim teenager in New York allegedly had her hijab pulled off after being called a terrorist; on October 24, a Muslim postal worker in Wilton Manors, Florida, was allegedly insulted, struck, and deprived of her hijab.[6] On November 25, three college students of Palestinian descent were shot and seriously injured in Burlington, Vermont; a suspect was arrested and charged with three counts of attempted murder.[6] One student, Hisham Awartani, was left paralyzed from the waist down after a bullet lodged in his spine.[11] A February 4, 2024 stabbing of a Palestinian American in Austin, Texas, was also included among examples of violence against Palestinian Americans in the U.S. national strategy.[2]

Early British reporting likewise showed increases after October 7.[4] Between October 7 and December 13, 2023, 1,432 anti-Muslim incidents were reported through the Tell MAMA monitoring system, 634 percent more than during the corresponding period in 2022.[4] London police separately recorded 101 anti-Muslim incidents between October 1 and 18, compared with 42 in the same period a year earlier.[4] By June 2024, increased anti-Muslim hatred and antisemitism beyond Israel and Gaza formed part of the U.S. government’s assessment of global religious-freedom conditions.[3]

Threats affected Muslim institutions as well as individuals during fall 2023.[6] The Islamic Society of Greater Portland reported multiple threats on October 16, prompting increased law-enforcement patrols near the mosque.[6] On December 1, a reported bomb threat led to the evacuation of Maryland’s Idara-e-Jaferia Islamic Center; local law enforcement subsequently determined that the threat was invalid.[6] In a November incident, former U.S. government employee Stuart Seldowitz was filmed allegedly harassing a halal food-cart vendor, mocking Islam, and accusing him of supporting Hamas; he was arrested and charged with multiple hate-crime counts.[6]

Online abuse included statements treating Muslims collectively as responsible for Hamas’s actions.[9] A manual examination of posts published between October 7 and 18 on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit identified both anti-Jewish hate and Islamophobic content.[9] One subsequently removed Reddit post advocated violently wiping out “all of Islam.”[9] The review identified more hateful content in images and videos than in text, but supplied no numerical count of Islamophobic posts.[9]

In the United States, complaint data showed a sharp increase during the final quarter of 2023.[12] The Council on American-Islamic Relations received 3,578 complaints of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian discrimination and hate in October–December, a 178 percent increase over the same period in 2022.[12] Employment discrimination accounted for 662 complaints, followed by hate crimes and incidents with 472 and education discrimination with 448.[11] Intake included calls, emails, an online reporting system, public statements and videos, and media reports.[11]

The organization’s full-year 2023 total was 8,061 complaints, 56 percent above 2022 and its highest total in nearly three decades of recordkeeping.[13] Its monthly average rose from approximately 500 during the first nine months to nearly 1,200 in the final quarter.[13] The largest annual categories were immigration and asylum, employment discrimination, hate crimes, and education discrimination.[13] An earlier account described 774 complaints during the first several weeks of the war, compared with 63 incidents reported in August, without specifying the exact dates of the comparison period.[5]

Complaint totals remained elevated in 2024.[14][15] In the first six months, 4,951 anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian complaints were received, nearly 70 percent more than during the corresponding period in 2023.[14] The full-year tally reached 8,658 anti-Muslim and anti-Arab complaints, a 7.4 percent increase over 2023 and the highest annual total since publication of the data began in 1996.[15] Employment discrimination represented 15.4 percent of the 2024 total, immigration and asylum 14.8 percent, education discrimination 9.8 percent, and hate crimes 7.5 percent.[15]

Police-recorded hate-crime statistics measured a narrower category.[16] The FBI’s 2023 table listed 236 anti-Muslim incidents, 275 offenses, and 283 victims nationwide.[17] The incident total was 49 percent higher than in 2022 and the highest since 2017; anti-Arab incidents numbered 123, a 34 percent increase.[16] Underreporting remained a concern, and Wadea Al-Fayoume’s murder was recorded as anti-Muslim but not additionally as anti-Arab.[16]

In Britain, verified anti-Muslim hate cases recorded through Tell MAMA rose from 2,201 in 2022 to 3,767 in 2023 and 5,837 in 2024.[18] These figures included online and in-person incidents and drew on a monitoring system operating since 2012 with police data-sharing agreements in England and Wales.[18] The 2024 increase occurred amid both the Israel–Gaza war and the Southport killings and subsequent riots.[18] Schools were also affected: reported graffiti at Woodford County High School in Redbridge read “Death to Gaza, death to Arabs, death to Muslims,” prompting police involvement.[4]

In Australia, verified incidents recorded by the Islamophobia Register were reported to have increased by 150 percent by November 2024, while online incidents rose by 250 percent compared with earlier periods.[19] Muslim women described physical assaults, spitting, shoving, and sexual threats connected to wearing a headscarf.[19] Muslim university students, particularly women, reported unease about remaining on campus after classes and reliance on prayer spaces they regarded as safe.[19]

German research distinguished attitudes from recorded incidents.[20] A study covering January 2023 through September 2024 found overt anti-Muslim attitudes remained at approximately 28 percent and changed little after October 7.[20] On comparable measures, their prevalence was approximately three times that of classic antisemitic prejudice.[20] Separate research described increases in anti-Muslim hate crime alongside antisemitic incidents after October 7.[8]

In November 2023, U.S. education authorities announced investigations of six colleges and one school district over allegations of antisemitic or anti-Muslim discrimination during the war.[21] The institutions were Cornell, Columbia, Cooper Union, Lafayette, the University of Pennsylvania, Wellesley, and Kansas’s Maize Unified school district.[21] The announcement emphasized safe and inclusive learning environments for students targeted because they were, or were perceived to be, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Sikh, or members of another shared-ancestry group.[21]

A January 2025 Title VI resolution agreement with Rutgers University followed review of more than 400 reported hostile-environment cases during the 2023–24 academic year.[22] Investigators found that the university likely failed to address a hostile environment based on national origin or shared ancestry and subjected some students to discriminatory treatment; allegations concerned Jewish students and students identified as Palestinian, Arab, South Asian, or Muslim.[22] The investigation faulted the university for considering reports individually rather than evaluating their cumulative effects.[22] The agreement required additional staff and campus-police training, review of student-conduct cases, listening sessions, and a campus-climate assessment.[22]

Campus experiences extended beyond cases resulting in federal agreements.[5] Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian students and faculty described harassment, discrimination, and censorship at U.S. universities.[5] Harvard task-force findings released in April 2025 indicated that 56 percent of Muslim student respondents felt physically unsafe, while 92 percent of Muslim students and faculty respondents feared repercussions for expressing their opinions.[5] These percentages concerned participants in the task-force process rather than the entire Muslim campus population.[5]

Community-safety measures included federal hate-crime cases concerning threats against Palestinian Americans and damage to an Islamic center, alongside meetings and resources addressing several targeted communities.[7] Australian recommendations included improved hate-crime data, security funding for mosques and Islamic schools, and consideration of aggravated penalties for offenses targeting people because they are Muslim or perceived to be Muslim.[19]

In Germany, grassroots organizations quickly assumed a larger role in mediating Jewish–Muslim dialogue during the war.[8] Research into these encounters included German-language media analysis, interviews, and observation of eight in-person interfaith events initiated by policymakers, three virtual dialogue events, and a hybrid film screening.[8] Participants used social media to circulate examples of solidarity and joint action, contrasting with portrayals of pro-Palestinian demonstrations as inherently hostile to Jews.[8]

Muslim participants in a virtual security discussion described feeling threatened by police and disappointed by what they regarded as the state’s divisive role in the war’s repercussions in Germany.[8] They also expressed concerns about media portrayals, children’s and young women’s sense of exclusion, and elderly relatives attending mosques.[8] Interviewees reported that young Muslims increasingly saw mainstream media as criminalizing them.[8] A wider European essay described feelings of physical threat, marginalization, alienation, and exclusion among Muslims, as well as pressure on individuals and organizations to condemn the October 7 attack publicly.[23] In some cases, insufficiently forceful condemnation reportedly brought threatened institutional or financial consequences or media campaigns.[23]

Research using the Czech context examined parallel forms of exclusion: conflation of Jewish voices with Israeli state politics and marginalization of Muslim perspectives amid heightened anti-Muslim rhetoric.[24] Its stated materials included personal accounts, public testimonies, media narratives, political responses, and societal attitudes.[24] In January 2024, an open letter signed by Israeli public and cultural figures, including David Grossman, Haggai Levi, and Ala Dakka, expressed concern about a growing tendency in the West to perceive Muslims as terrorists.[25] The letter warned against dehumanizing Palestinians and Muslims and distinguished pro-Palestinian protest from support for crimes against Israelis.[25]

No universally accepted definition of Islamophobia exists, and the United Kingdom had not adopted a government working definition by the end of 2023.[19][4] A 2018 parliamentary-group definition treated it as racism targeting expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness; critics objected, while the Muslim Council of Britain accused a critical Civitas report of misrepresenting it.[4]

Classification and measurement present separate difficulties.[2][6] Some altercations involving Palestinian flags or anti-Palestinian language did not clearly establish anti-Muslim motivation.[6] Advocacy-group complaints, verified monitoring cases, police-recorded crimes, and attitude surveys measure different phenomena; annual FBI totals do not identify a war-specific subset, and complaint totals are not confirmed-crime counts.[11][17] A 2026 account citing increases of 180 percent in the United States and approximately 140 percent in London supplied no underlying citations, incident counts, or methodology.[26] Reported increases therefore do not establish that the war caused every incident, particularly where other contributing events were identified.[18]

Wartime restrictions and political-expression cases in Israel raise related classification questions.[27] After October 7, police restricted Friday-prayer access to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif in response to Hamas calls for mass rallies in East Jerusalem; reported accounts included access limited to 5,000 elderly worshippers on October 13 and prolonged entry restrictions.[27] The same religious-freedom account recorded Dalal Abu Amneh’s arrest after posting a Quran verse with a Palestinian flag, her reported two-day solitary detention and release without charges, and disciplinary proceedings involving Arab or Palestinian students.[27] Reported organizational figures included 74 students represented in proceedings and approximately 130 students and lecturers from 33 institutions summoned to hearings and suspended or expelled; a student survey found 61 percent considering ending their studies over personal-safety concerns.[27] These accounts did not establish religious motivation or classify all such restrictions and proceedings as Islamophobia.[27]