Matthew Xiao( Free Beacon)

Harvard University’s School of Public Health announced Wednesday that it has suspended its research partnership with Birzeit University, a West Bank school that has hosted military parades in honor of Hamas.

Harvard decided to freeze its ties to Birzeit as part of an internal review of its François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights and will consider permanently severing the relationship when the investigation concludes later this spring, spokeswoman Stephanie Simon told the Harvard Crimson.

The move comes after months of pressure on Harvard to end the partnership with Birzeit, which has described itself as “a thorn in the side of the occupation,” the Washington Free Beacon reported. In late 2021, the Palestinian university hosted a pair of military parades celebrating the founding anniversaries of both Hamas and another terror group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) and dozens of other House Republicans in July wrote a letter calling on Harvard administrators to “immediately end” its relationship with Birzeit. Former Harvard president Lawrence Summers echoed the demand days later in an X post.

The Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance in a May report also condemned the collaboration, warning that it amplifies “false narratives and hate.”

Alliance president Eric Fleiss told Jewish Insider this week that the group is “disappointed that it took this long for Harvard to suspend relations with a university that, among other misdeeds, blatantly discriminates against Israeli Jews by barring them from campus, elects would-be terrorists to student government and hosts Hamas and PFLP parades on campus.”

“We are gratified that they have finally done it and hope that their review of the relationship will lead them to recognize a permanent termination,” Fleiss added.