Joel Goldenberg – The Suburban LJI Reporter

The Town of Hampstead will soon be adopting a bylaw penalizing the removal of posters on its territory of the more than 224 Israeli and other hostages being held by the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.

“Hampstead will adopt a by-law that will impose a $1,000 fine to any person that removes the Israeli hostage posters from public property,” Mayor Jeremy Levi posted on Facebook. “Furthermore, 100 percent of the sums collected from this infraction will be donated to Israel.” The posting received many plaudits from other posters.

Posters featuring the pictures, names, ages and nationalities of those being held by Hamas following their Oct. 7 attack on Israel have been posted in numerous cities. The Suburban has seen some posters in the Snowdon area.

And there also have been numerous incidents of pro-Palestinian people, especially near universities, aggressively ripping down posters. One student, identified by the StopAntisemitism on X as Aya Baraket, when confronted by someone filming them, responded “f–k you and f–k Israel!” Her accomplice was identified as her sister Dana Baraket.

Others, with obnoxious expressions, have said nothing and continued to take the posters down. Still others yelled “why are you filming me?” One adult was famously confronted by several men in New York City. One student inside a university who removed a poster claimed to be just looking at it, and then tore it up and walked away. n