Gaza war protests denounced by NYC leaders as 'antisemitic' after subway car threat chant, vandalism

New York City leaders are blasting pro-Palestinian protesters as "antisemitic," "repugnant" and 'cowards" following a series of recent incidents that include demonstrators asking Zionists to identify themselves on a subway train and carrying the flags of terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah outside an exhibit commemorating victims of the Oct. 7 attack in Israel.

While protests have been ongoing since the Israel-Hamas war began with the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas, they appear to have escalated in recent days in New York and elsewhere in the nation. They include episodes of vandalism earlier this week on the homes of Jewish officials of the Brooklyn Museum and the Palestinian Mission to the United Nations. Additionally, pro-Palestinian protesters at Cal State Los Angeles took over the ground floor of a campus building, prompting administrators inside to shelter in place.

The New York Police Department said Thursday that they are working to identify the masked leader of a call-and-response chant by protesters on a crowded Manhattan subway car on Monday. The chant asked Zionists to identify themselves.

Video surfaced Wednesday of the incident on a Brooklyn-bound subway train that was halted with its doors open at the Union Square station in Manhattan.

"Repeat after me: Raise your hands if you're a Zionist," the leader, wearing sunglasses and a traditional Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, which has become a symbol of pro-Palestinian resistance, is heard repeatedly saying in the video, adding, "This is your chance to get out!"

"Ok, no Zionists, we're good," the leader is then heard saying.

One rider filed a police complaint in response, and the NYPD is asking others who were aboard the subway car and felt threatened to come forward.

NYPD detectives are now working to identify the call-and-response leader, who is expected to be charged with attempted coercion, police sources told ABC News.

Another New York City protest tied to the war in Gaza prompted a large police response early Wednesday and the closure of a block on the city's Upper East Side, where the Palestinian Mission to the United Nations was vandalized and demonstrators littered the street with leaflets smeared with red paint and encouraging the intifada, according to police.

Other vandalism incidents suspected to be linked to the protest were discovered in four other areas of the city Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, including at the homes of the Jewish director of the Brooklyn Museum and several of the museum's board members, officials said.

"The cowards who did this are way over the line into antisemitism, harming the cause they claim to care about, and making everyone less safe," New York City Comptroller Brad Lander said in a post on X accompanied by photos of red paint smeared on the doors and windows of the home of Brooklyn Museum Director Anne Pasternak.

According to Lander's photos, protesters also unfurled a sign at the museum director's home, which read, "Anne Pasternak Brooklyn Museum white supremacist Zionist."

"While no one deserves this, worth noting that few museums have done more to grapple w/hard questions of power, colonialism, racism & the role of art," Lander also wrote in his post.

An inverted red triangle was also painted on Pasternak's door, a symbol that has been used by Hamas to mark Israeli military targets and which has also been seen recently at some university protests.

“We are deeply troubled by these horrible acts,” a spokesperson for the Brooklyn Museum said.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said he spoke to Pasternak on Wednesday and told her "These actions will never be tolerated in New York City for any reason."

"This is not peaceful protest or free speech," Adams said. "This is a crime, and it's overt, unacceptable antisemitism."

New York City Councilman Lincoln Restler also posted on X, calling the vandalism "disgusting & horrible."

"This anti-Semitic incident is despicable," Restler wrote, adding that the NYPD is reviewing security video of the vandalism to identify those responsible.

No arrests connected to the protests and vandalism have been announced.

Numerous police officers responded to the Palestinian Mission to the United Nations on 65th Street in New York around 6 a.m. to investigate reports of vandalism, officials said.

When officers arrived, they found the street littered with pamphlets covered in red paint, apparently signifying blood, and accusing the Palestinian Authority of not representing the Palestinian people and being too close to Israel and the United States. The pro-Hamas leaflets also read, "Long live the intifada," using the Arabic term for the Palestinian uprising against Israel.

Witnesses told ABC New York station WABC that about 15 demonstrators showed up in a U-Haul truck outside the Palestinian Mission around the time of the vandalism and began protesting. Witnesses said the roughly 15 demonstrators were briefly at the scene before piling back into the U-Haul truck and leaving.

The vandalism came after a large protest against the war in Gaza was held on Tuesday outside a new exhibit in lower Manhattan honoring the 364 concertgoers killed at the Nova Festival in Israel during the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas terrorists. Hundreds of protesters waved Palestinian and Hamas military flags and the flag of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that has vowed to destroy Israel.

Some protesters even tried to storm the doors of the exhibit as relatives of those killed at the Nova Festival were touring the displays, which featured photos of loved ones murdered by Hamas.

Mayor Adams, who attended the exhibit, condemned the protest as "not a representation of our city."

"Our Constitution and our way of life in our city permits free speech and part of that free speech that is protected is some of the ugly things we heard," Adams said. "We have also the right to say, 'This is not who we are as a city,' and I'm exercising that right, right now."

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York also condemned the protest at the Nova Festival exhibit in a speech Tuesday on the Senate Floor.

"How repugnant! How despicable!" Schumer said. "How terribly unnerving that humanity could sink that low."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, posted a statement on X calling criticizing the protest at the exhibit.

"The callousness, dehumanization, and targeting of Jews on display at [Tuesday] night’s protest outside the Nova Festival exhibit was atrocious antisemitism - plain and simple," Ocasio-Cortez said. "Antisemitism has no place in our city nor any broader movement that centers human dignity and liberation."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, also issued a statement condemning the protest at the Nova Festival exhibit.

"On October 7, Hamas terrorists brutally murdered, sexually assaulted, tortured and took hostage innocent civilians, including Americans, at the Nova Music Festival in Israel. The only humane response to these atrocities is disgust and moral outrage," Jeffries said. "The recent protest at the Nova Music Festival Exhibition in lower Manhattan, where some participants chanted antisemitic slogans, endorsed the repugnant actions of terrorist groups like Hamas and celebrated the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians is unconscionable and un-American. The egregious behavior on display designed to justify the killing of Jews has no place in a civilized society. We will not tolerate it."

Jeffries added, "New Yorkers of goodwill must continue to fight the malignant tumor of antisemitism with the fierce urgency of now until we crush this cancer so that it never rises again."