The Yale Daily News published an opinion column on Oct. 12 titled “Is Yalies4Palestine a hate group?” On Oct. 13, the News published a separate opinion piece titled “Stop justifying terrorism.” In the former, the author wrote, in reference to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack against Israel, “yes, they raped women … yes, they beheaded men.” In the latter, the author wrote that Hamas “committed … rape.” The source that the columnists cited suspected cases of sexual assault. 

During our opinion editing process — which is separate from reported coverage — the News failed to ensure that the columnists’ statements were properly cited and attributed. At the time of the columns’ initial publication, those specific forms of violence during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack were not independently confirmed by the cited source.

On Oct. 25 and Oct. 26, the News published corrections to both pieces, modeled on reporting and corrections from other outlets — such as The Forward and The Los Angeles Times — from earlier in the month. 

The News was wrong to publish the corrections. By the time of the first correction on Oct. 25, there had been widely reported coverage from outlets such as Reuters publicly verifying that Hamas raped and beheaded Israelis. 

These corrections erroneously created the impression that, as of late October, there still was not enough publicly available evidence for those horrific acts. The News therefore retracts those editor’s notes in their entirety and without qualification. The notes have been removed from the columns, and the original text has been restored. 

It was never the News’ intention to minimize the brutality of Hamas’ attack against Israel. 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.

Threats of violence leveled against the News, its editors and their families have intensified this week. Threats of this severity are unacceptable in any circumstance. 

The News remains committed to reporting the facts and to creating a forum for free, fair and honest campus and community dialogue. 

ANIKA ARORA SETH
Anika Arora Seth is the 146th Editor in Chief and President of the Yale Daily News. Anika previously covered STEM at Yale as well as admissions, alumni and financial aid. She also laid out the weekly print edition of the News as a Production & Design editor and was one of the inaugural Diversity, Equity & Inclusion co-chairs. Anika is pursuing a double major in biomedical engineering and women's, gender and sexuality studies.