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When police searched the home of two Students for Justice in Palestine leaders, a pair of sisters at George Mason University, their allies painted a sympathetic picture.
The students were targeted, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), for engaging in “anti-genocide events on campus.” The Intercept reported that police found “antique firearms” registered to the students’ brother and brought gun-related charges as a result of his family’s “pro-Palestine activism.”
Excluded from those descriptions was the crime the sisters are suspected of committing. A group of student radicals defaced George Mason’s student center in August, spray painting messages that warned of a “student intifada.” In its coverage of the incident, the Washington Post wrote that “activists spray-painted words on Wilkins Plaza outside the university’s Johnson Center.”
Those activists caused thousands of dollars in damage, a felony in the state of Virginia, and police suspect the SJP leaders, sisters Jena and Noor Chanaa, led the group of vandals. Weeks after the incident, in November, a county judge granted a warrant—which is under seal until February, according to a Fairfax County court representative—allowing police to seize electronics from the Chanaa family home.
When officers entered the Chanaa family home, they found firearms—modern weapons, not antiques—as well as scores of ammunition and foreign passports, all of which sat in plain view, according to court documents obtained by the Free Beacon and sources familiar with the investigation.
They also found pro-terror materials, including Hamas and Hezbollah flags and signs that read “death to America” and “death to Jews,” according to court documents and sources familiar.
Police seized the weapons under Virginia’s red flag law, arguing that Mohammad Chanaa, the students’ brother and a George Mason alumnus, was “linked to destruction of property in connection with a large group of people with like-minded rhetoric” and posed a danger to others given his possession of “terroristic” materials.
On the day of the search, Nov. 7, law enforcement officials removed “long guns” from the residence, sources say. A day later, Mohammad Chanaa voluntarily relinquished his 9mm handgun and concealed carry permit, according to court records. He was not charged with a crime—Virginia’s red flag law gives gun owners 14 days to petition a judge to return their firearms, and Mohammad Chanaa did so on Nov. 21. A Fairfax County circuit court judge granted his request as part of the civil case.
CAIR has denounced the “draconian measures used by law enforcement authorities” to “silence or intimidate those who seek to end the Israeli genocide in Gaza.” A faculty group at George Mason, meanwhile, released a statement expressing “deep concern about the apparent targeting of two George Mason students for their advocacy for Palestinian human rights.”
The ongoing ordeal—local police are investigating the incident with the FBI’s assistance, sources familiar with that investigation tell the Free Beacon—reflects CAIR and SJP’s status as driving forces behind the anti-Semitic activism that has plagued college campuses in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel. It also reflects the radical, pro-terror views that have become synonymous with that activism.
Both Jena and Noor Chanaa have been deeply involved with George Mason’s SJP chapter. Jena, a master’s student studying civil and infrastructure engineering, served as the chapter’s president last school year. Noor, an undergraduate student, took over as co-president this year. Their brother, Mohammad, is a recent George Mason graduate who served in the Springfield, Va., volunteer fire department as recently as Sept. 2023, records show. The three siblings hail from the area and live together in their parents’ home.
George Mason did not respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the Fairfax County commonwealth attorney’s office, Laura Birnbaum, confirmed that officers found guns, ammunition, and pro-terror materials during their search and declined to comment further.
The Chanaa family attorney, Abdel-Rahman Hamed, did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement provided to the Washington Post, Hamed said the case marks “yet another example of the police state targeting American Muslims without cause.” An “about” section on his LinkedIn page states, “I deny, defy, and defeat Zionists, antisemites, and White Supremacists.”
Under Jena and Noor’s leadership, George Mason’s chapter of SJP has endorsed Hamas and its “martyrs.” In a statement issued two days after the Oct. 7 attack, the group lauded the “liberation of the Palestinian people” and endorsed “the right to resist for Palestinians living under the zionist occupation.” It said “Palestinian resistance fighters” mobilized “into surrounding occupied areas” on Oct. 7, “reclaiming land and settlements considered illegal” in the name of “decolonization.”
“Decolonization entails the struggle for liberation of a colonized people from the grasp of their colonizers,” the statement read. “This struggle for the much-sought after liberation from the colonizer is not meant to be metaphysical—but material.”
“Every Palestinian is a civilian even if they hold arms. A settler is an aggressor, a soldier, and an occupier even if they are lounging on our occupied beaches.”
The group went on to hold campus protests rallying support for “Palestinian martyrs” and “the resistance.” On the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7, Jena Chanaa posted a photo of smiling Gazans on top of an Israeli military vehicle. “One year ago we witnessed Gaza break through the prison doors. No cage will ever be strong enough to hold the colonized,” she wrote in a caption. “We have tasted liberation and will free ourselves in this lifetime. Glory to every single martyr in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen. May the earth burn for Gaza and may we avenge our martyrs every single day.”
Months earlier, in a pair of Instagram posts, she wrote that her family comes from “Taytaba in North Palestine” and expressed a willingness to “die in my homeland.”
“76 years have passed since the forced expulsion of my family,” she said. “76 years of resistance to the occupation. 76 years of steadfastness and determination. 76 years of the complete belief that we will inevitably return.”
Jena and Noor Chanaa and their associates appear to have leveled more aggressive threats toward their school through a pseudonym, using an Instagram account, “gmuintifada.” The account posted a video of the Aug. 30 vandalism the sisters are suspected of leading with the caption:
We, the George Mason University students of conscience, bear witness to the atrocities funded and supplied by our university, and we have chosen to retaliate. During the early hours of Wednesday morning, autonomous students left the imperial George Mason University a message: that the student intifada has been reignited, and that we will honor all the Gazan martyrs who did not live to witness this academic year. University administrations across the nation have convinced themselves that they can suffocate the flames of resistance that have been unleashed since the inception of this genocide. Yet, what they fail to realize is that their every effort to stifle our voices and eradicate our movement for liberation has only provoked an inferno that will engulf all systems of oppression that are upholding the genocide of the steadfast and honorable Palestinians. George Mason University, you will NEVER be able to escape accountability for your role in this genocide. Gaza is our compass and the heart of our noble struggle and the Student Intifada will confront every dousing of our eternal flame of resistance with precision. We will never be extinguished. Resistance until victory, GMU Intifada #escalate4gaza #studentintifada.
Shortly thereafter, George Mason police offered a $2,000 reward “for information leading to the successful arrests of the persons involved in the criminal vandalism incident.” The “gmuintifada” account has since been deleted from Instagram.
In the wake of the November search on the Chanaa home, George Mason slapped its SJP chapter with an interim suspension, according to a coalition of student groups affiliated with the chapter. University police also served Jena and Noor Chanaa “with criminal trespass notices barring them from campus for four years,” according to the Intercept.
CAIR has called on George Mason to rescind those disciplinary measures.
University leaders see the case differently, with George Mason president Gregory Washington calling the school’s actions “justified based on the information available” in a Nov. 20 faculty senate meeting. So do state and local law enforcement officials.
“For us at the state and local level, you know, we’re concerned,” one official told the Free Beacon, noting CAIR’s ties to illicit fundraising efforts for Hamas as well as recent revelations that Iran has bankrolled anti-Israel campus protests in the United States.
“It clearly shows the connection between potential radicalization and some of these student groups that are out there,” the official added. “It needs to be investigated if these are just sympathies, or is there a road to radicalization?”
Jessica Costescu contributed to this report
