Giulia Heyward/Gothamist
By Giulia HeywardPublished Oct 7, 2026 at 7:33 p.m. ET
Union Square was on high alert Wednesday night as demonstrators poured in ahead of a vigil marking the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani was expected to attend.
Demonstrators waved Israeli and Palestinian flags and held signs as dozens of police vehicles surrounded the area. Members of the NYPD’s counterterrorism unit were among the NYPD deployment around the park.
Laura Liben, a Jewish Upper West Side resident, said she arrived around 6:30 p.m. to participate in the vigil and complained about the pro-Palestinian demonstrators who’d gathered around.
“I feel like they kind of came and took over the whole thing,” Liben said. “I think if they had come maybe asking questions or starting a dialogue, but this feels really hostile.”
About 1,200 people were killed in the attacks and roughly 250 others were taken hostage. The ensuing war in Gaza has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, according to data provided by Gaza’s health ministry. Both the attacks and the war that followed remain a source of deep tension in the five boroughs and Mamdani, the first Muslim mayor of New York, has faced accusations of antisemitism from his detractors for supporting Palestinians and accusing Israel of genocide.
In a statement on Wednesday, Mamdani denounced “every Israeli bomb dropped on ambulances waiting outside hospitals, every drone strike targeting a residential building or journalist, and every shipment of food aid turned away at a border crossing.”
The Anti-Defamation League’s New York/New Jersey office criticized Mamdani on Wednesday, saying “the grief and pain has not dulled in the three years since” the attacks.
“Mayor Mamdani had the opportunity to use this anniversary to mourn alongside his Jewish constituents,” the organization said on social media. “Instead he chose to use his considerable platform to level political charges against Israel, justifying the very violence he claims to condemn.”
City Councilmember Vickie Paladino from Queens also called Mamdani’s remarks “disgraceful.”
“He does this knowing that today leftist, Islamist and pro-Palestinian activist organizations — many of which he and his wife have aligned with — are openly celebrating the 10/7 attacks, in some of the most grotesque and disturbing actions we've ever seen in this country,” Paladino said.
New York has the largest Jewish population of any city in the world outside of Israel. The ADL has also criticized Mamdani over his administration’s recently released plan to combat hate crimes against Jewish New Yorkers, which did not adopt a formal definition of antisemitism.
Mamdani released the plan as reported antisemitic hate crimes continue to rise in the city. The NYPD said antisemitic hate crimes increased 9% during the first eight months of the year compared with the same period last year. Jewish New Yorkers were the targets of more than half of all confirmed hate crimes citywide during that period, according to Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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