Mob chased Brooklyn woman after mistaking her for protester at speech by Israeli security minister

NEW YORK (AP) — A Brooklyn woman said she feared for her life as she was chased, kicked, spit at and pelted with objects by a mob of Orthodox Jewish men who mistook her as a participant in a protest against Israel’s far-right security minister.

The assault, recorded by a bystander, unfolded Thursday near the global headquarters of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in Crown Heights, where an appearance by Itamar Ben-Gvir set off clashes between pro-Palestinian activists and members of the neighborhood’s large Orthodox Jewish community.

The woman, a neighborhood resident in her 30s, told The Associated Press she learned of the protest after hearing police helicopters over her apartment. She walked over to investigate around 10:30 p.m. but by then the protest had mostly dispersed. Not wanting to be filmed, she covered her face with a scarf.

“As soon as I pulled up my scarf, a group of 100 men came over immediately and encircled me,” said the woman, who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety.

“They were shouting at me, threatening to rape me, chanting ‘death to Arabs.’ I thought the police would protect me from the mob, but they did nothing to intervene," she said.

As the chants grew in intensity, a lone police officer tried to escort her to safety. They were followed for blocks by hundreds of men and boys jeering in Hebrew and English.

Video shows two of the men kicking her in the back, another hurling a traffic cone into her head and a fourth pushing a trash can into her.

“This is America,” one of the men can be heard saying. “We got Israel. We got an Army now.”

At one point, she and the police officer were nearly cornered against a building, the video shows.

“I felt sheer terror,” the woman recalled. “I realized at that point that I couldn’t lead this mob of men to my home. I had nowhere to go. I didn’t know what to do. I was just terrified.”

After several blocks, the officer hustled the woman into a police vehicle, prompting one man to yell, “Get her!” The crowd erupted in cheers as she was driven away.

The woman, a lifelong New Yorker, said she was left with bruises and mentally shaken by the episode, which she said police should investigate as an act of hate.

“I’m afraid to move around the neighborhood where I’ve lived for a decade,” she told the AP. “It doesn’t seem like anyone in any position of power really cares.”

A police spokesperson said one person was arrested and five others were issued summons following the demonstration, but did not say whether anyone involved in assaulting the woman was charged.

Mayor Eric Adams said Sunday that police were investigating “a series of incidents stemming from clashing protests on Thursday that began when a group of anti-Israel protesters surrounded the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters — a Jewish house of worship — in Brooklyn.”

He said police had spoken to a different woman on the pro-Palestinian side of the protest who suffered injuries after she was harassed by counterprotesters. Photos shared online showed that woman with blood streaming down her face.

“Let me be clear: None of this is acceptable, in fact, it is despicable,” Adams added. “New York City will always be a place where people can peacefully protest, but we will not tolerate violence, trespassing, menacing, or threatening.”

The protest was one of several in recent days against Ben-Gvir, an ultranationalist settler leader who is embarking on his first U.S. state visit since joining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet three years ago.

Previously convicted in Israel of racist incitement and support for a terrorist group, he has called on his supporters to confront Palestinians and assert “Jewish Power."

The protest against Ben-Gvir’s Brooklyn appearance generated condemnations from some Jewish groups, who accused participants of targeting a religious site.

The neighborhood around the Chabad headquarters also was the site of the 1991 Crown Heights riot, in which Black residents outraged by a boy's death in a crash involving a rabbi's motorcade attacked Jews, homes and businesses for three days.

A Chabad-Lubavitch spokesman, Rabbi Motti Seligson, denounced both the anti-Ben-Gvir protesters and the mob that chased the woman.

“The violent provocateurs who called for the genocide of Jews in support of terrorists and terrorism — outside a synagogue, in a Jewish neighborhood, where some of the worst antisemitic violence in American history was perpetrated, and where many residents share deep bonds with the victims of Oct. 7 — did so in order to intimidate, provoke, and instill fear,” Seligson said.

“We condemn the crude language and violence of the small breakaway group of young people; such actions are entirely unacceptable and wholly antithetical to the Torah’s values. The fact that a possibly uninvolved bystander got pulled into the melee further underscores the point,” he said.

This image taken from video shows a woman and a police officer as they are pursued by a mob of Orthodox Jewish men in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, N.Y., on Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo)

This image taken from video shows a woman and a police officer as they are pursued by a crowd of men in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, N.Y., on Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo)

This image taken from video shows a woman and a police officer as they are pursued by a crowd of men in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, N.Y., on Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo)

This image taken from video shows a woman and a police officer as they are pursued by a crowd of men in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, N.Y., on Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo)

This image taken from video shows a woman and a police officer as they are pursued by a crowd of men in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, N.Y., on Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo)

This image taken from video shows a woman and a police officer as they are pursued by a crowd of men in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, N.Y., on Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo)

This image taken from video shows a woman and a police officer as they are pursued by a crowd of men in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, N.Y., on Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo)

This image taken from video shows a woman and a police officer as they are pursued by a crowd of men in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, N.Y., on Thursday, April 24, 2025. (AP Photo)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.

Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.

Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”

Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”

Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.

“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”

He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”

Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.

More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.

Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.

In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.

Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”

Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.

“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.

The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.

The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.

Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.

In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)