A small group of anti-Israel activists in New York City staged a vigil this week marking the first anniversary of the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel.

The Bronx Anti-War Coalition — a far-left, self-described “anti-imperialist” group — organized the event, which featured a makeshift memorial with flowers, candles, a Quran, and images of Sinwar and other terrorist leaders, including Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah and senior Iranian officials. A banner reading “Glory to the Axis of Resistance” hung above the display, alongside Hamas insignia, according to a video posted by the group.

Sinwar was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza on October 16, 2025, nearly two years after masterminding the Hamas assault that left some 1,200 Israelis dead and 251 others abducted.

It remains unclear how many people attended the vigil, though announcements for the event circulated among several campus and activist networks, including the anti-Israel coalition at Columbia University.

The Bronx Anti-War Coalition’s platform calls for the “abolition of the Zionist entity” and praises what it calls the “Axis of Resistance” — the alliance of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran — as the “only realistic path toward Palestinian liberation.”

The coalition is one of the city’s smaller anti-Israel groups and has not been publicly endorsed by larger organizations like the Palestinian Youth Movement or the People’s Forum, which are structured as nonprofits. Those groups typically avoid explicit references to US-designated terrorist organizations, as doing so could expose them to legal scrutiny or risk their nonprofit status.

While public displays of solidarity with Hamas have surfaced periodically in New York since the October 7 attacks, the Sinwar memorial marks one of the first instances of activists openly venerating the group’s slain leadership on U.S. soil.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)