As war grinds on in Gaza, many in Brooklyn's ‘Little Palestine’ feel the sting

A Palestinian flag hangs in the front window of Kings Salon barbershop in Bay Ridge, Al Jazeera news plays on the TV, and manager Bahaa Sharabati says almost every customer who sits in his barber’s chair has a view to share on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, what the U.S. government should do, and the war’s mounting death toll.

“It’s not easy to see it. It’s not easy for my heart,” said Sharabati, a 42-year-old Palestinian immigrant who lives in the Brooklyn neighborhood, as he scrolled through news coverage of Israeli strikes on Gaza on the Telegram app. “But that’s how it is. That’s the truth. We have to face it.”

Since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in Israel, grief and fear have hovered over swaths of Bay Ridge — called "Little Palestine" by some for its large Palestinian community. More than 1,400 Israelis have been killed in the recent violence, most on Oct. 7; retaliatory strikes by Israel have killed more than 9,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Bay Ridge residents, shopkeepers and civic leaders say the anguish has only grown in recent weeks as reports of both anti-Palestinian and antisemitic attacks have increased.

Everyone's mourning, whether they're Palestinian, Arab, different ethnicities, Muslims. We’re all mourning in Bay Ridge.

Marwa Janini, director of the Arab American Association of New York

“Everyone's mourning, whether they're Palestinian, Arab, different ethnicities, Muslims,” said Marwa Janini, director of the Arab American Association of New York, headquartered in the neighborhood. “We’re all mourning in Bay Ridge.”

She said the organization has withdrawn from any “remotely celebratory events,” including an annual film festival. It started a virtual weekly support group for Palestinian and Arab youth. The group also created a map of over a dozen “safe haven” businesses in the area that have agreed to provide refuge and assistance to passersby who feel threatened.

At local adult literacy and education classes, Janini said, parents have discussed being worried about the safety of their children, including those participating in pro-Palestinian rallies.

“There's a lot of fear around, like, do our kids speak about Palestine?” she said. “And, the do's and don'ts. And who do we speak to? Who can we trust, and who can we not trust? And if we speak about Palestine, are we going to be labeled as extremists and terrorists?”

'Back to the Sept. 11 time'

The NYPD has reported a handful of anti-Palestinian hate crimes since the war started, including an Oct. 11 incident in which nine men holding an Israeli flag allegedly kicked and punched an 18-year-old Palestinian man on 86th Street and 4th Avenue in Bay Ridge, after making anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian remarks. Two brothers have been arrested in connection with that attack, police said.

Data shared by the police show the department has added eight reported anti-Muslim crimes to their records since the week the war began, for a total of 15 such incidents so far this year. Some 30 antisemitic hate crimes were recorded by police from Oct. 9 through Oct. 24, the NYPD said. But local residents and city officials say many more bias incidents go unreported or don’t rise to the level of a hate crime.

A Council of American-Islamic Relations of New York survey last year found 64% of the Muslim respondents experienced a hate crime or bias incident but only 4% reported incidents to law enforcement. In the two weeks following the Oct. 7 attacks, CAIR-NY said it received 82 complaints of hate crime and bias incidents, including incidents of school bullying and physical assaults.

In Bay Ridge, some local organizations preemptively beefed up their security. The Arab American Association of New York has installed more security cameras at its Fifth Avenue headquarters and is considering hiring a security guard for extra protection.

Next door, an NYPD patrol car has been routinely stationed outside the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge mosque, where men in kufi caps gather as the Muslim call to prayer reverberates from the loudspeakers, since the war began.

Mohamed Elnashar, director of the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, said his group requested the extra police presence.

“Everybody feels it went back to the Sept. 11th time,” he said. “Because a lot of hate comes up in the city.”

'Are you OK? Is everything OK?'

In response, some neighborhood nonprofits have hosted know-your-rights sessions, self-defense classes, and trainings on how to report hate crimes.

At the Women’s Empowerment Coalition of NYC’s basement brownstone-turned-office space, many of the women in a recent afternoon English class shared fears about their personal safety.

One woman said she was invited to a Palestinian wedding in the city where the bride’s family requested that guests not wear a black-and-white keffiyeh, a headdress traditionally worn by men that has become a Palestinian symbol.

In the past, said Somia El-Rowmeim, the coalition’s director, women have expressed worry that their hijabs would be snatched off. El-Rowmeim said some have been told by strangers on the subway to “go home to your country.”

“Whatever happened in [the] Middle East, it's impacted us here,” she said. “What happened in Palestine is going to impact us as a Muslim community.”

The day after the war broke out, El-Rowmeim said, her brother in Yemen called her to caution her to be safe as she traveled on the train, especially as a hijabi woman. And she worries about her two hijabi daughters traveling to attend school in Manhattan.

She said she texts her daughters constantly asking, “Are you OK? Is everything OK? Anyone bothering you?”

'He's a little boy'

Outside Al Aqsa Bakery and Restaurant on Bay Ridge’s bustling Fifth Avenue, owner Mahmoud Kasem smoked a cigarette and greeted neighborhood friends and acquaintances on a recent day. He scrolled through his iPhone photo library, where he had saved images of the carnage in Gaza.

“You know how much I go home and I hold up my kids and I hug them to death?” said Kasem, 37, an East Jerusalem native with two aunts in Gaza. “I'm imagining these are my kids, and I'm there.”

A woman in a black burka approached him smiling. They chatted for a few seconds in Arabic before he flashed her a photo on his phone screen – an image of a bloodied child.

“He’s a little boy,” the woman said, shocked, as she held her son’s hand.

“Yeah. All kids,” Kasem said, before scrolling to another photo. “Look at this.”

“I don't want to see that,” she replied, pushing her son away from the screen. "I can’t.”

As she turned to leave, Kasem looked down again at the photos.

“You get used to this,” he said, as he continued scrolling.