March 22, 2025 (EIRNS)—On March 17, the Department of Justice announced it has assembled the FBI team that will lead its newly created Joint Task Force October 7, or JTF 10-7, “an initiative that will seek justice for the victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack in Israel and address the ongoing threat posed by Hamas and its affiliates.” Enthusiastically established by Attorney General Pam Bondi on her first day in office, JTF 10-7 will, according to the DOJ press release, “focus on targeting, charging, and securing for prosecution in the United States the direct perpetrators of the October 7 attack.”
However the scope of JTF 10-7 extends much further, to “investigat[ing] acts of terrorism and civil rights violations by individuals and entities providing support and financing to Hamas, related Iran proxies, and their affiliates, as well as acts of antisemitism by these groups.”
”[T]he Department will no longer permit illegal support of Hamas on our campuses and elsewhere in the homeland,” threatened Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. “Anti-Semitic acts of terrorism—whether here or abroad—will never go unpunished.”
Taken alongside the DOJ Task Force To Combat Anti-Semitism, which is already being used to silence and terrify pro-Palestinian protestors and student leaders, this FBI task force, which promises to work with “international partners,” further weaponizes the DOJ to suppress the First Amendment rights of anyone in the U.S. speaking out against the genocide in Gaza in the name of countering “terrorist activity.”
