The wife of detained Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil has rejected claims made by the United States government that her husband supports Hamas, describing the accusations as “absurd” and “repugnant”.
In an interview with CBS, published on Sunday, Noor Abdalla, who is expecting a child, dismissed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s statement that Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University in New York, was distributing Hamas propaganda. No evidence has been provided by the US government to support this accusation.
“I find it absurd. It’s appalling … that they are resorting to such tactics to portray him as someone he is not,” she said.
On March 8, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Khalil and is currently holding him in a facility in Louisiana, as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on – and potentially deport – students who participated in protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza at US universities last year.
Trump has accused the student protesters of engaging in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activities” without providing any evidence to support these claims.
Khalil served as a spokesperson and mediator for the pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Columbia last year. He believes that his detention is a result of exercising his right to free speech and has labeled himself a “political prisoner”.
On March 10, a US district judge in New York temporarily halted Khalil’s deportation, which was further extended two days later.
“It’s very simple: he just doesn’t want his people to be killed,” Abdalla told CBS. “He doesn’t want to see children losing limbs.”
The Trump administration is seeking to deport Khalil under a rarely used provision of immigration law that allows the secretary of state to remove any non-citizen whose presence in the US is considered to have “adverse foreign policy consequences”.
A graduate student until December, Khalil had been in the US on a student visa but has since obtained a green card, granting him permanent residence in the country.
The death toll of Palestinians since Israel initiated its offensive in Gaza in October 2023 has surpassed 50,000, with more than 113,000 people injured, according to Gaza health officials.
On Tuesday, Israel broke a nearly two-month ceasefire with Hamas, escalating its attacks on Gaza and causing the deaths of over 670 people since then, the Gaza Health Ministry reported.
Discrimination in the US
Expressing her frustration, Abdalla wiped away tears as she discussed the need to repeatedly defend herself and her husband against the accusations from the Trump administration.
She highlighted the discrimination she has faced as a Muslim in the US.
“Recently in New York, my husband and I were walking and someone called me a ‘terrorist’,” she recalled. “I think most Muslims in this country can relate to that. It doesn’t matter what I say … that’s how they will perceive me.”
