FBI sees 60 percent jump in hate crime cases since Israel-Hamas war

Reported hate crimes have surged since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers Tuesday, saying the bulk of the cases targeted Jews.

“We’ve been opening I think 60 percent more hate crimes investigations post-Oct. 7, then compared to the comparable period pre-Oct. 7,” Wray said during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, referring to when Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel.

“And that’s on top of that already escalating increase that I mentioned,” he said, after noting hate crimes reached a high in 2022.

The FBI director said “the biggest chunk of those are threats against the Jewish community, but there are of course attacks … against others as well,” pointing to attacks against Muslim targets.

Wray earlier this year addressed the spike in reported hate crimes and the outsize portion of attacks directed at the Jewish community, saying the U.S. was reaching “historic” levels of antisemitism. 

“The reality is that the Jewish community is uniquely targeted by pretty much every terrorist organization across the spectrum,” he told lawmakers in late October. “And when you look at a group that makes up 2.4 percent, roughly, of the American population, it should be jarring to everyone that that same population accounts for something like 60 percent of all religious-based hate crimes, and so they need our help.”

“They’re getting it from racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists, ISIS-inspired violent extremists [and] foreign terrorist organizations,” he added.

The Anti-Defamation League in the first few weeks after the attack documented 312 antisemitic incidents since the breakout of the conflict, a 388 percent spike over the same period last year.

Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said it received reports of 774 “biased incidents” from its members, a jump from an average of 224 reports for a 16-day period in 2022.

Wray on Tuesday repeatedly addressed fallout from the conflict that began with Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, saying the conflict raises the risk of repercussions within the U.S.

“It’s certainly higher than it has been in a long, long time. … Post-Oct. 7, you’ve seen a veritable rogues gallery of foreign terrorist organizations calling for attacks against us,” Wray said.

“The threat level has gone to a whole ‘nother level since Oct. 7.”