Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel activists faced off in Queens on Thursday night outside a synagogue that was hosting an event promoting real estate sales in a Jewish city in the West Bank.
But efforts by the NYPD largely ensured that the two groups did not come close to each other, and that the pro-Palestinian protesters could not come to close to people attending the event, either.
Even so, the protesters, organized by the group PAL-Awda, could be heard by attendees shouting slogans including “Death to the IDF,” “Globalize the intifada” and, at one point, “Say it loud, say it clear: We support Hamas here.”
While the pro-Palestinian protesters were kept behind barriers down the street from the synagogue, Anita Dayan, a 48-year-old Orthodox Jewish Kew Gardens Hills resident, cried as she walked in front of them on her way to the event.
“It makes me feel scared, and it makes me feel sad,” said Dayan. “I’m raising my kids here still, and it just makes me wonder what our future is here.”
Police form a barrier between pro-Palestinian protesters and a group of young men with Israeli flags in Kew Gardens Hills on Jan. 8, 2026. (Grace Gilson)
The events outside Young Israel of Kew Garden Hills marked the first major pro-Palestinian protest in the city since Zohran Mamdani, who opposes Israel, was sworn in as mayor last week.
Jewish leaders in the city had expressed concern about Mamdani’s response to a November protest outside Park East Synagogue in which people seeking to attend an event about moving to Israel had to pass close to demonstrators who were shouting at them and yelling insults.
At the time, Mamdani reiterated his vow to keep all New Yorkers safe but added that “sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.”
His response fueled calls from lawmakers and elected officials to create “buffer zones” limiting protests directly outside houses of worship. Gov. Kathy Hochul said this week that she plans to announce state legislation, and newly elected City Council Speaker Julie Menin, who is Jewish, has said the council would move to enact similar legislation.
No new laws were in place on Thursday night when PAL-Awda, the group that staged the December protest, brought about 100 demonstrators to Queens. Some Jewish community groups had urged against a counter-protest, fearing violence, but around 100 pro-Israel demonstrators turned up as well. The NYPD blocked roads around Young Israel and kept both sets of protesters far from each other.
The dozens of police officers on the scene also quickly formed a barrier when a large group of young Jewish men arrived as the pro-Palestinian protesters were dispersing.
Still, the incident proved disruptive. An elementary school and day care center at the site reportedly closed early in anticipation of potential turmoil, and both sets of demonstrators shouted inflammatory language.
Some of the pro-Israel demonstrators shouted “We love ICE,” a reference to the federal immigration enforcement agency that has been involved in the Trump administration’s efforts to deport pro-Palestinian protesters, sometimes under the accusation that they are “Hamas sympathizers.” (On Wednesday, an ICE agent fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis.)
Shouts from the PAL-Awda side also included “Globalize the intifada,” the slogan that Mamdani drew fire for declining to condemn during the election season. He has said he would “discourage” the use of the phrase, which police in London and other cities have recently said they would begin to treat as criminal because of its association with violence against Jews.
The CEO of the Combat Antisemitism Movement raised alarm about the chants at the rally and called on Mamdani to take action against the demonstrators.
“It is clear that anti-Semites, masquerading as pro-Palestinian demonstrators, feel increasingly emboldened now that Mayor Mamdani is in office,” Sacha Roytman Dratwa said in a statement. “The mass chanting of ‘We support Hamas’ means that they support the mass murder, rape and kidnapping of Jews, and to chant this in a residential area populated by many Jewish families is meant to be violent and threatening. … Mayor Mamdani has to act before words turn into bullets.”
At the end of the dueling protests, pro-Palestinian demonstrators called the pro-Israel crowd “Nazis” and “Pedophiles,” a surging claim among anti-Israel extremists.
In a flyer for the protest against the event, which highlighted real estate for sale in the city of Maale Adumim, Pal-Awda called for demonstrators to “stop the sale of stolen Palestinian land.”
Maale Adumim is a major Jewish settlement in the West Bank with a population of about 40,000. Critics of Israel see the city as strategically significant because its location would interrupt contiguous land for a potential Palestinian state. Still, it is seen as likely to remain under Israeli control if a Palestinian state is created in the future.
The showdown came a night after PAL-Awda canceled another planned protest at an event by Nefesh b’Nefesh, which helps Jews move to Israel, including to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The group claimed victory, saying that it had deterred attendance.
Dayan said she felt comforted by the heavy police presence in her area, but she said seeing pro-Palestinian protesters in her neighborhood was “very unsettling.”
“I’m very happy to see that there is a good police presence and that they seem to be contained behind the picket fences, so that is comforting,” she said. “Everyone has their freedom, but it’s just, it’s scary. It’s very unsettling.”
