May 5 — New York City police attacked people protesting illegal sales of stolen Palestinian land. Officers used pepper spray and kettled demonstrators. Some of these cops were trained by the Zionist state’s military, who’ve committed genocide in Gaza.
The protest was called by PAL-Awda NY/NJ, which has long been campaigning against these illegal land sales. Members of Healthcare Workers 4 Palestine, CUNY 4 Palestine and other groups also participated.
The stolen land sale had been condemned by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose election campaign featured support for Palestinian rights. Well, Mr. Mayor, why don’t you tell the police to back off, and fire Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who herself is a member of a billionaire real estate family?
The PAL-Awda statement pointed out that “the ongoing sales of stolen Palestinian land reflect yet another day of violations of local, federal and international law — violations protected and enabled by our city government.” The group demanded that the State Attorney General and New York City mayor “investigate, audit and stop stolen Palestinian land sales; remove the tax exempt status of those hosting these events; drop Jessica Tisch as Police Commissioner; and disband the Strategic Response Group now!”
The illegal event — called “the Great Israeli Real Estate 2026” — was conducted by the Tivuch Shelly outfit that sells real estate in occupied Palestine to English speakers. Only Jewish potential buyers were allowed into the sale held at the Park East Synagogue on the ultra-wealthy Upper East Side of Manhattan.
As a sign carried by a protester said, “stolen land sales are illegal even when they happen in a synagogue.” Many Jewish people were among those demonstrating, including Rabbis from Neturei Karta, a worldwide group of anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews.
Continuing the Nakba
Among the Palestinian cities listed on the “Great Israeli” website where stolen land was being sold were Jerusalem (Al-Quds), Haifa and Ashkelon (al-Majdal). All of these cities were ethnically cleansed of their indigenous Palestinian populations during the 1948 Nakba that established the Zionist apartheid state.
Ninety-five percent of Palestinians were driven out of Haifa. Many of their descendants now live in the besieged Gaza Strip, being bombed and massacred for being born Palestinian in the land of Palestine.
Also being sold was land in settlements in the occupied West Bank.
According to the PAL-Awda Stolen Land Campaign, “Admission to these real estate sales is limited by ethnicity, and only to those who can pass Zionist screening questions, in violation of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 Fair Housing Act of 1968, state and international law.”
Police violence against protesters
Despite the illegality of the stolen land sale, hundreds of cops were deployed to protect it. Police viciously pushed metal barricades against protesters in front of Hunter College.
They were given the green light by recently passed legislation by the City Council that allows the NYPD to keep protests away from “places of worship” and schools. This law wasn’t about freedom of religion. It was enacted to strangle the freedom of speech of Palestinians and their supporters.
This legislation doesn’t go into effect until June. Yet six square blocks of the neighborhood were blockaded by cops, who wouldn’t even let residents go to stores. Police units included the notorious Strategic Response Group, which supposedly was restrained in a 2023 court settlement after hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters were arrested in the Bronx.
There were originally two rallies on either side of the blockaded zone before they merged in front of Hunter College. Continuous chanting and drumming by hundreds of protesters could be heard for blocks.
People began marching through the streets. A bus operator and cars honked in support. Police attacked but didn’t stop the demonstrators.
Statement of PAL-Awda NY/NJ
Our community remains undeterred: Stop the sale of stolen Palestinian land.
On Tuesday, PAL-Awda NY/NJ and hundreds of community members protested the illegal “Great Israeli Real Estate Event of 2026” in Manhattan. The event openly promoted real estate on stolen Palestinian land, violating local, federal, and international law.
Despite a brutal police response emboldened by lawmakers who seek to protect these criminal events, New Yorkers have made it clear: our community remains undeterred in the face of intimidation, and we will continue to stand against the sale of stolen land in our neighborhoods.
Tuesday’s event was hosted by Israeli real estate companies Home in Israel, Emanuel Group, and International Marketing and Promotion in partnership with Israeli Leumi Bank. Event organizers advertised properties in Gush Etzion, Kfar Eldad, Karnei Shomron, among others — all illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The event also provided prospective settlers financial guidance to buy property in “Anglo neighborhoods,” expediting ethnic cleansing in all of Palestine, and furthering the dispossession on which the colonial Zionist project is built.
The participating real estate companies shamefully chose to hide their illegal event in the Park East Synagogue on the Upper East Side, the same synagogue that hosted an illegal settler recruitment fair in November 2025.
Tuesday’s protest reminded these land-thieving agents and their Zionist collaborators that we will continue to show up whenever and wherever these sales occur. We reject all attempts to distract from the reason for our principled protest.
Tuesday’s rally was the first against illegal Israeli real estate events since the introduction of state and city-level bills that attempt to establish unconstitutional anti-protest “buffer zones.”
Despite the NYPD forcing us to hold our demonstration 300 feet away from the land sale, NYPD officers violently kettled, barricaded, brutally grabbed, pushed, and pepper-sprayed pro-Palestine protesters while protecting Zionist counter-agitators, including members of Betar, who tried to grab and push those present.
We condemn the complicity of elected officials and people in power, who have shielded criminal, genocide-supporting Zionist agencies, instead of protecting the rights and interests of their own constituents.
While Mayor Zohran Mamdani criticized Tuesday’s real estate event, his words rung hollow when the NYPD brutalized New Yorkers for standing up against stolen Palestinian land sales in our neighborhoods, and when there is no response to actionable calls for accountability.
In March of 2024, Palestinian lawyers and advocates submitted an official demand letter to the Attorney General Of New York, calling for an audit and investigations of these illegal events. To this day, our community is awaiting a response.
Tuesday’s event violated New York Property Law, New York Human Rights Law, and state and federal real estate and housing laws, and international laws, amongst others. City and state officials have the power — and the responsibility — to respond to our calls for action.
We reaffirm our demands to the Mamdani administration to advance meaningful calls to the Attorney General to investigate, audit and stop stolen Palestinian land sales, remove the tax-exempt status of those hosting these events; drop Jessica Tisch as Police Commissioner; and disband the Strategic Response Group, in order to curb the NYPD’s discriminatory targeting of our community. We continue to look towards the steadfast people of Gaza and across Palestine as we protest and disrupt. So long as there is impunity in our neighborhoods for the theft of Palestinian land, we refuse to remain silent.
Palestine is not for sale. No settlers on stolen land.
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