Harvard President Claudine Gay FINALLY condemns the 'terrorist atrocities committed by Hamas' in Israel - after 31 college student groups pledged support to insurgents

Harvard President Claudine Gay has finally condemned the 'terrorist atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel' - at odds with the views of many students at the college. 

In a statement published on the Ivy League institution's website, Gay said the 34 student groups who pledged to support the Islamic militants 'don't speak for the university or its leadership'. 

The Hamas movement, which controls the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, attacked Israel on Saturday in the worst breach of the country's defenses since Arab armies waged war in 1973. Israel has responded with air strikes on Gaza.

The leaders of one of America's most prestigious colleges stayed quiet as the death tolls on both sides breached quadruple figures - until today.  

Harvard President Claudine Gay (pictured) has finally condemned the 'terrorist atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel' - at odds with 31 student groups at the Ivy League institution who have pledged support to the militants

In a statement published on the Ivy League institution's website, Gay said the 31 student groups who pledged to support the militants 'don't speak for the university or its leadership'

'As the events of recent days continue to reverberate, let there be no doubt that I condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas,' Gay said in a statement. 

'Such inhumanity is abhorrent, whatever one's individual views of the origins of longstanding conflicts in the region.

'Let me also state, on this matter as on others, that while our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group — not even 30 student groups — speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.

'We will all be well served in such a difficult moment by rhetoric that aims to illuminate and not inflame. 

'And I appeal to all of us in this community of learning to keep this in mind as our conversations continue.'

A coalition of 34 Harvard students organizations said they 'hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence' following decades of occupation, adding that 'the apartheid regime is the only one to blame.'

The organizations signing the letter included Muslim and Palestinian support groups plus others named for a variety of backgrounds including the Harvard Jews for Liberation and the African American Resistance Organization.

'The apartheid regime is the only one to blame,' they said. 'Israeli violence has structured every aspect of Palestinian existence for 75 years.

'From systematized land seizures to routine airstrikes, arbitrary detentions to military checkpoints, and enforced family separations to targeted killings, Palestinians have been forced to live in a state of death, both slow and sudden.'

Harvard President Claudine Gay and senior leadership including 15 deans issued a statement on Monday that said they were 'heartbroken by the death and destruction unleashed by the attack by Hamas that targeted citizens in Israel this weekend.'

But the statement avoided direct references to the student letter or the reaction to it.

Harvard is the most influential university in U.S. politics, having produced eight former presidents and four of the nine current Supreme Court Justices.

Harvard President Emeritus Lawrence Summers, the former U.S. Treasury Secretary under Democratic President Bill Clinton and former university president, was one of several Harvard graduates to criticize the current Harvard leadership for failing to respond.

'The silence from Harvard's leadership ... has allowed Harvard to appear at best neutral towards acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel,' Summers wrote on social media platform X. 'I am sickened.'

While universities traditionally have been a bastion of free speech and radical ideas, the student letter struck a chord within the political establishment.

Elise Stefanik, a Republican U.S. Representative from New York and a Harvard graduate, called the statement 'abhorrent and heinous' for excusing the 'slaughter of innocent women and children.'

Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, a Harvard Law School graduate, wrote on X: 'What the hell is wrong with Harvard?'