An anti-Israel activist at Columbia University who now works as a social worker for New York City's municipal health system called for Zionists "to burn in hell."
"In case there was ever any doubt before: if u ever make an excuse or express sympathy for isr[ael], I rlly don’t care what happens to u!! Like at all! I wish for u whatever it is u wish for Gaza … plz take that in the worst possible way," Zainab Khan posted to Instagram on Sunday. "Every zio and every sympathizer can burn in hell."
Khan deleted her Instagram account after the Washington Free Beacon contacted her. She did not respond to a request for comment.
Khan started receiving a taxpayer-funded salary in August when she began working for NYC Health + Hospitals, according to her LinkedIn profile, which she also deleted. Her role providing "assistance and counseling to clients and their families who are dealing with social, emotional and environmental problems" likely involves assisting Zionists, considering the New York metropolitan area has the largest population of Jews in the country.
NYC Health + Hospitals also did not respond to requests for comment.
Khan's remarks echo a broader wave of anti-Israel activists condemning the joint U.S.-Israel strikes against Iran that began over the weekend. Following the announcement that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) posted "death to America" in Persian on X.
As a Columbia University graduate student, Khan became a prominent member of CUAD. She has boasted about "the first protest we had" after Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack, just five days following the assault. It was part of a nationwide "day of resistance" organized by National Students for Justice in Palestine, which praised the attack as "a historic win for the Palestinian resistance."
Khan also said she was "assisting with security" at a January 2024 protest that CUAD led when she and her fellow radicals were "attacked with a chemical spray" that left her with "long-term vaginal bleeding." It turns out it was actually a "Liquid Ass" fart spray that can be purchased on Amazon for $26.11.
About two months later, Khan interviewed longtime anti-Semitic activist Linda Sarsour, who encouraged activists to donate to pro-Palestinian organizations and protest against Israel. Sarsour has compared Zionism to "white supremacy in America" and questioned Israel's right to exist. She rose to national prominence as a lead organizer of the 2017 Women's March, where her support for notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan and convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh sparked controversy. Sarsour has also led calls for a global boycott of Israel and claimed, "One cannot be a feminist and a Zionist at the same time."
Khan conducted the interview while working part-time with the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, an anti-Israel group bankrolled by George Soros.
When she graduated from the Columbia School of Social Work in May 2024, Khan waved a Palestinian flag with "Divest Now" scrawled on it while crossing the commencement stage.
Khan appears to have maintained her anti-Israel activism after graduating. After ICE arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a CUAD leader who helped organize the encampments at Columbia, in March 2025, Khan came to his defense.
Khalil was calling for Columbia to "stop using the student endowment to invest in different Israeli weapons manufacturing companies and basically remove any sort of support from Israel," she told CNN.
But her anti-Israel activism dates back well before she enrolled at Columbia. In 2019, Khan penned an op-ed calling for an end to a U.S.-Israeli law enforcement exchange program, arguing that Israeli policing methods promote "state violence and control." She accused the Jewish state of deploying militarized tactics against Palestinians, linking them to racial profiling, surveillance, and police brutality in the United States.
When Khan announced on LinkedIn last year that she had begun working for NYC Health + Hospitals, fellow Columbia School of Social Work graduate student and anti-Israel activist Aidan Parisi offered congratulations.
Parisi—the son of longtime State Department official Elizabeth Daugharty—emerged as a leader of the illegal encampment that occupied Columbia's campus for weeks in April 2024. He was suspended for his involvement in a campus event organized by CUAD, which featured a member of the designated terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Israeli-designated terrorist organization Samidoun, a PFLP fundraiser designated a "sham charity" by the Treasury Department's Office for Foreign Assets Control.
Parisi was also among 22 student activists expelled for storming Hamilton Hall. He could, however, return to campus after a New York Supreme Court judge ordered Columbia to reverse the disciplinary action, ruling that the university had improperly relied on sealed arrest records.
