Swastikas, hate speech reportedly printed in NYC UN-affiliated middle school yearbook

New York’s UN International School, which serves diplomats’ children, says it seized yearbooks and is probing incident, which Israeli parent says is part of a ‘deep-seated problem’

Swastikas and homophobic comments were reportedly printed in an eighth-grade yearbook of the United Nations International School in New York, a UN-affiliated institution that teaches the children of diplomats.

The school canceled the eighth grade’s end-of-year party over the incident and has launched an internal investigation, the Ynet news site reported Thursday, citing Israeli and Jewish parents of students at the school, where a swastika was also found etched in a boys’ locker room earlier this year.

UNIS, where annual tuition costs run up to about $50,000, is also facing a lawsuit from earlier this year by a Jewish veteran French teacher who claims the institution has ignored repeated complaints about antisemitic and anti-Israel abuse from both students and staff.

The Ynet report did not include pictures or quotes from the yearbook, but UNIS spokesperson Lupe Todd-Medina confirmed to the news site that school yearbooks had contained “hateful language.”

“We are shocked by the hateful language found in the junior school yearbooks and unequivocally condemn identity-based harm,” the spokesperson said. “Upon learning of the incident, school leadership immediately confiscated the remaining yearbooks and launched a comprehensive investigation.”

Israeli diplomats whose children attend UNIS slammed the school’s response for speaking broadly about “identity-based harm” without explicitly calling out antisemitism, Ynet reported.

“Nothing surprises us anymore,” Ynet quoted an Israeli parent as saying. “It feels implausible to present every incident like this as an isolated case and not a deep-seated problem.”

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon brought up the Ynet report at the General Assembly on Thursday, when the UN marked the International Day for Countering Hate Speech.

“This is a pattern: first come the chants, then come the threats, then come the attacks,” he said.

On the International Day for Countering Hate Speech, the world received a particularly troubling reminder: swastikas and hateful messages were reportedly printed in yearbooks at a UN-affiliated school in New York.

While the United Nations continues to hold discussions on… pic.twitter.com/6gcyveWc5r

— Danny Danon ???????? דני דנון (@dannydanon) June 18, 2026

Danon also wrote on X: “While the United Nations continues to hold discussions on tolerance and combating hatred, antisemitism continues to surface even within institutions associated with it.”

Israeli officials regularly accuse the UN of hostility to Israel and Jews for its rhetoric against Israel during the Gaza war sparked by the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023. Israel has also alleged that the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, collaborates with Hamas and that employees of the agency took part in the October 7 attack and held hostages in Gaza.