Outrage as Muslim students recreate October 7-style Hamas kidnapping at school

A student is draped in a keffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian headscarf, and pulled away. (Image: X)

Muslim students have staged a "Hamas kidnap" stunt on fellow pupils, viral footage first shared by journalist Asra Nomani has shown. The incident involved one student wrapping a keffiyeh around a classmate's head and then pretending to abduct him at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia. Multiple students have been suspected by the school.

Ms Nomani - who is Muslim - captioned the video, which she has since deleted from platform X: "Bad taste - or the outgrowth of a protest culture that's glorified Hamas?". She lambasted the Muslim Student Association (MSA) at the elite school for filming a video meant to "protest Israel".

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. (Image: Google)

The incident began when a student asked two classmates whether they intended to go to the MSA meeting the following day. The boys responded in a mocking tone, folding their arms and jokingly questioning what the meeting was for and why they would go. Moments later, two more boys jumped out from behind a curtain.

One wrapped a keffiyeh around the student's head while the other picked up his classmate and put him in a plastic bin. The two "kidnapped" students were dragged behind a curtain with their faces covered, and two more students stepped onto the scene.

The students then asked: "Are you going to the MSA meeting?" and they quickly responded: "Yes, of course."

Looking satisfied with the response, the two "kidnappers" nodded and walked away. At the end of the clip, the footage moved to show the "kidnapped" students still behind the curtain, silent, still covered, unmoving.

Guila Franklin Siegel, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, told Fox News: "It's almost chilling to see teenagers so lively acting out something that is so horrific."

Ms Nomani said that local parents have accused the school of "culture of callousness and poor judgement", raising students to be "so insensitive and callous".

This was not the only incident of a similar type. Ms Nomani also shared a similar video from the MSA at Langley High School in McLean, where members again appeared to "kidnap" a student after he said he would not be attending a meeting.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the country's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation, voiced anger after learning that several students had reportedly been suspended over what it described as a "playful skit". The group argued that the video was comparable to many others produced by school clubs nationwide, and suggested the reaction would have been different had the students not been Muslim or Arab.

In a statement to Fox, school district officials said: "Acting out these types of violent acts is traumatising for many of us to watch and, given world events, especially traumatising to our Jewish students, staff, and community.

"It is never appropriate to make light of such horrific acts, but it is especially callous and cruel to do so when Hamas continues to hold the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages more than two years after committing the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust.

"The trauma that all families impacted by the Israel-Hamas war have experienced over the past two years remains fresh.

"Making light of violence during a time of war is beyond the pale."