Two Recent NYC Incidents Target Companies Doing Business with Israel

A Capital One Bank branch on the Upper East Side had its windows smashed and was vandalized this week with graffiti that read “DROP ELBIT,” referring to the Israeli defense company, and “PAL ACTION.” The international anti-Israel direct action group Palestine Action claimed responsibility on October 19, calling the incident “the price of complicity in genocide.”

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin posted a photograph of the Upper East Side incident on social media, noting that she was in touch with local law enforcement and had “urged an immediate investigation, including whether this is a potential antisemitic hate crime.”

This was the first major U.S.-based incident Palestine Action claimed responsibility for since the group was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in August 2026 “for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods and services to or in support of, an act of terrorism.”

Prior to its sanctioning, Palestine Action also claimed responsibility for vandalism targeting the Florida home of an Elbit Systems executive in June and an Illinois branch of the logistics company DSV, which activists allege transports equipment for Elbit, in March.

Palestine Action was previously proscribed as a terrorist group by the UK in 2025, though it has continued to operate in many other countries and claim responsibility for various vandalism incidents globally since its UK proscription.

Five days prior to the Capital One vandalism, an anonymous group of vandals destroyed the OMNY (contactless subway payment system) readers at the Church Avenue subway station in Brooklyn. Fliers distributed at the scene justified the vandalism by accusing the company that developed OMNY, Cubic, of having ties to Israel. The fliers placed in the subway station read, in part, “MASS SURVEILLANCE AT HOME, GENOCIDE ABROAD…EVERY TIME YOU TAP, YOU’RE SENDING MONEY TO A WAR PROFITEER.”

Cubic Corporation is a private company with two divisions: Cubic Transportation Systems, which operates OMNY, and Cubic Defense, which has supplied training systems to Israel through past U.S. military contracts. 

(Screenshot/X)

Footage posted on social media shows vandals destroying OMNY entry gate readers at a Brooklyn subway station in mid-October 2026.

Transportation hubs and infrastructure, as well as related logistics, manufacturing, and transit companies, are frequent targets of violent vandalism incidents, disruptive blockades, and broader Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns. Through these efforts, anti-Israel activists seek to not only interfere with alleged weapons shipments or the operations of companies that they claim do business with Israel, but also to disrupt the lives of everyday Americans.

Direct actions — including vandalism incidents that incorporate graffiti, arson, and other tactics — have historically been a popular strategy among certain segments of the anti-Israel movement. In the aftermath of Hamas's October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel through the end of 2025, dozens of direct action incidents took place across the U.S. targeting public and private property.

Unity of Fields (UoF), an anti-Zionist direct action network that launched after October 7 as Palestine Action U.S. before later rebranding, claimed responsibility for many of these incidents in 2023 and 2024. Another group, the Direct Action Movement for Palestinian Liberation (DAMPL), launched in the spring of 2025 and quickly garnered attention for vandalism incidents nationwide.