Jews targeted in 70% of all NYC hate crimes in July, police say

The Times of Israel is liveblogging Tuesday’s events as they unfold.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations says it has received a report of an incident 20 nautical miles northeast of Oman’s Al Khasab, after a cargo vessel broadcast over VHF channel 16 that it had been hit by an unknown projectile.

The European soccer association UEFA punishes Maccabi Tel Aviv by ordering the Israeli club to play a Europa League home game in an empty stadium after fans lit fireworks at a game last week.

Maccabi hosts CSKA Sofia on Thursday at the same stadium in Batumi, Georgia, where the team beat Sheriff Tiraspol 1-0 last week.

Israeli national and club teams have had to choose neutral countries to host games in UEFA competitions for security reasons since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre launched the Gaza war and conflicts on other fronts.

Maccabi must pay a fine of 40,000 euros ($46,000) and play its next home game “behind closed doors,” UEFA says in an urgent ruling by its appeal panel.

The attendance was 1,012 when Maccabi hosted Moldova’s Sheriff last Thursday in the second qualifying round of the Europa League.

Jews were targeted in 70% of all hate crimes in New York City in July, as the number of hate crimes against Jews and other groups continued to increase since New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani took office at the start of the year.

Since January 1, 2026, when Mamdani took office, overall hate crimes are up 9.4% compared to the same period last year — from 329 last year to 360 this year.

Confirmed anti-Jewish hate crimes have increased 8.5% this year, with 205 so far this year compared to 189 over the same period last year.

Jews were targeted in 57% of all hate crimes in the city so far this year, the NYPD says. Jews make up around 10% of the city’s population.

Hate crimes against Asians, Black people, and White people are down this year, while incidents against Hispanic people, Muslims, and crimes motivated by sexual orientation and gender have increased.

Last month, Jews were targeted in 23 confirmed hate crimes, or 70% of the total of 33 incidents in the city, a higher proportion than usual. The figure is 53% higher than in July 2025.

“The work to uproot antisemitism out of this city is one that will continue until we see hate crimes come to an end in the city,” Mamdani says at a press conference.

“I remain deeply concerned and very troubled by the unacceptable spike in all hate crimes, particularly driven by those targeting Jewish New Yorkers,” City Council Speaker Julie Menin says in a statement.

Menin is Jewish and has led efforts to combat antisemitism in the city government.

Shootings, murders and other major crimes such as robberies and assaults are generally down in the city.

US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declines to halt $655.5 million in damages that Palestinian authorities were ordered to pay plaintiffs in a US civil lawsuit concerning terror attacks that killed and injured Americans in Israel from 2002 to 2004, during the Second Initifada.

Sotomayor denied a request by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization to put on hold the judgment while they appeal a lower court’s decision to revive the case years after it had been dismissed.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of Americans killed or injured in shooting and bombing attacks in the Jerusalem area.

The Supreme Court last year upheld a federal law that allowed claims like those brought by the plaintiffs in the case.

Sotomayor does not explain her decision and does not refer the case to the entire court. Sotomayor handles emergency matters for cases arising from New York and certain other states.

The Manhattan-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the judgment in March following the Supreme Court’s 9-0 decision in June 2025 to uphold the 2019 law, called the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act.

The Palestinian organizations said that enforcing the judgment in the case will cause severe financial harm and destabilize government services in the West Bank, where the PA is already cash-strapped, harming people who live there and jeopardizing regional security.

They said in a written filing that the plaintiffs intend to seek payment from indirect Palestinian tax revenue collected by Israel, a key source of funding for Palestinian government operations. Security, sanitation and school services in the West Bank “are hanging by a thread,” they wrote.

The plaintiffs, in winning the judgment in New York federal court in 2015, alleged that the Palestinian entities were responsible for the incidents from 2002 to 2004.

The 2nd Circuit threw out that verdict in 2016 and ordered that the case be dismissed, concluding that the federal judge in the case did not have jurisdiction over the matter. The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the case in 2018.

Congress then passed the 2019 law to facilitate lawsuits against Palestinian authorities. Under the law, the PLO and PA automatically “consent” to jurisdiction if they conduct certain activities in the United States or make payments to people who attack Americans, which the PA has historically done.

The 2nd Circuit subsequently decided that the 2019 law violated the rights of these Palestinian authorities to due process under the US Constitution. But the Supreme Court overturned that ruling last year.

Following that Supreme Court action, the 2nd Circuit resurrected the judgment for the plaintiffs.

The Palestinian authorities had urged the Supreme Court to halt the payment for now, saying the judgment had long become void and a “nullity.”

“The money judgment at issue became a legal nullity when … appeals were exhausted in 2018,” they said.

A close friend of a victim of the Hamas massacre at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, died by suicide next to her grave on Saturday, further highlighting the ongoing struggles of survivors and friends and families of the onslaught’s victims.

Bar Bechor Asraf, 30, from the Shaarei Tikva settlement, had been a close childhood friend of Liron Barda, 26, who worked as the bartending manager at the rave and refused to leave the site after the terrorists invaded, instead staying behind to care for the wounded.

“They were inseparable. Twin souls,” the family tells the Ynet news site.

On Wednesday last week, Asraf danced and celebrated at his brother Maor’s wedding. His family said there were no signs then of what would follow just three days later.

A day later, his sister Lihi tells Ynet, “He told me how proud he was of me… I didn’t understand why he was saying all that to me.”

On Saturday afternoon, during a family celebration of their brother’s wedding, Lihi says, “Bar asked to go to the pool. We told him we don’t have a subscription, and he said ‘okay.'”

She adds, “When we couldn’t find him, we started to search on foot. We thought, ‘Where could he be?’ and we said we would go to Liron’s grave.”

She continues, “At first I didn’t see him. And then I saw him lying there. I shouted, ‘Bar, get up!’ but only then did I realize what had happened. At first I thought someone had killed him. I didn’t understand what I was seeing.”

בר אסרף, משערי תקווה, שם קץ לחייו בירייה על קברה של חברתו הטובה לירון ברדה שנרצחה בנובה. אמו סיפרה לוואלה שב-7 באוקטובר נסע לחפש אחריה, ומאז התקשה להתמודד עם מותה והתקעקע לזכרה. ״אמרתי לו ׳בר, קום׳. ואז ראיתי שהוא מלא בדם. הוא מת במקום בו הכי רצה להיות״, שחזרה אחותו pic.twitter.com/e3KqOt2Mgz

— אורי סלע Uri Sela (@uri_sela) August 2, 2026

Lihi says Barda’s death had severely affected Bar.

“At first he didn’t sleep for a week, didn’t speak, didn’t eat and didn’t laugh. Later he started to slowly become rehabilitated. He went back to laughing, talking to people, and spreading Liron’s love. He would organize meals for soldiers in her memory. He was a person who always helped others,” she says.

Bar’s mother Bracha says: “Liron had been everything to him. She was his best friend and his therapist. It was important to him to tell her about anything he did. After she was murdered, he would go almost every day to the cemetery.”

While he seemed to heal and was outwardly cheerful most of the time, Bracha says his pain had not abated more than two and a half years after the massacre.

“Two months ago he sat in the living room and cried. I asked him, ‘What happened?’ and he told me: ‘Mom, it’s hard for me without Liron. Nobody can replace her. I miss her.’ He hugged me and cried loudly, in a way I won’t forget.”

She tells Walla, “He died in the place he most wanted to be.”

A delegation of Board of Peace officials held another briefing for US Congressional staffers of both parties on Monday to update them on the US-led panel’s efforts to advance the disarmament of Hamas.

Board of Peace senior adviser Josh Gruenbaum and security lead Gen. (ret.) Mark Schwartz “emphasized the determination to work with Congress in a bipartisan manner to advance peace, security, governance, and reconstruction in Gaza,” a Board of Peace official says.

National security advisers for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries participated in the briefing.

The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.

There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.

As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can't do this alone. If you value work like this, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.

— Stav Levaton, military reporter

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