Police have arrested one person and are searching for two others after anti-Israel agitators were seen burning American and Israeli flags just outside the Israeli consulate in Manhattan this week.
Jahki Lodgson-McCray, 20, was arrested Wednesday and has been charged with reckless endangerment, menacing, disorderly conduct and failing to use a sidewalk, the New York Police Department (NYPD) confirmed to Fox News Digital.
"On Wednesday, outside the Israeli Consulate in NYC, a mob burned both American and Israeli flags," the consulate wrote in a social media post. "This act shows that hatred towards Israel always accompanies anti-American sentiment. The NYPD has increased security efforts around the consulate to ensure the safety of our community."
NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry called the suspects "cowards" on Thursday, while sharing a surveillance photo of them on social media, adding their "criminal behavior will never be tolerated in our great city. The NYPD will identify and apprehend all of them for their failed efforts to sow fear and discord in the place where mutual respect is the essence of who we are."
The NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident.
The NYPD said the suspects used an "unknown accelerant" to burn the flags while standing in a bike lane outside of the consulate.
"The flames of the flags presented a danger to bikers having to swerve out of the bike lane onto ongoing traffic and also presented a danger to civilians on the sidewalk," the NYPD said.
The flag burning comes as tensions are high in the Jewish community as pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel protests and acts of violence continue in New York and across the country over the war in Gaza.
Another 20-year-old, Zuhdi Ahmed, has been charged on multiple counts with a hate crime after he was arrested on Thursday for allegedly hitting a man holding a Jewish flag in the head with a rock at Columbia University in April, the NYPD confirmed to Fox News Digital.
It also comes the same week that anti-Israel vandals threw red paint onto the homes of Jewish people who work at the Brooklyn Museum.
Mayor Eric Adams, in a post on the social platform X, shared images of a brick building splashed with red paint with a banner hung in front of the door that called the museum’s director, Anne Pasternak, a "white-supremacist Zionist."
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"This is not peaceful protest or free speech," the mayor wrote. "This is a crime, and it's overt, unacceptable antisemitism. These actions will never be tolerated in New York City for any reason. I'm sorry to Anne Pasternak and members of @brooklynmuseum's board who woke up to hatred like this. I spoke to Anne this morning and committed that this hate will not stand in our city. The NYPD is investigating and will bring the criminals responsible here to justice."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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