Two 18-year-old New Yorkers have been arrested for allegedly tearing down posters of hostages kidnapped in the war between Israel and Hamas.
Charlotte Wimer and Gray Segal were arrested last night for allegedly removing the posters from a wall outside private property in Gramercy Park.
The posters were of 240 Israeli children and adults kidnapped by the terrorist group since the October 7 attack on Israel. NYPD officials have charged both suspects with criminal mischief.
The wall of the private building was covered with red and white signs with the word “KIDNAPPED” written above photos of the missing hostages, as well as posters with the Israeli flag.
A video shared by an X user shows posters torn to shreds while Wimer and Segal are in handcuffs.
Charlotte Wimer and Gray Segal were arrested last night for allegedly tearing down posters outside a private property in New York’s Gramercy Park.
A video shared by an X user shows posters torn to shreds as Wimer and Segal are handcuffed
Photos show supporters placing new posters on the grounds of 201 East 23rd Street the next day
Photos show supporters placing new posters on the grounds of 201 East 23rd Street the next day.
Posters highlighting the Jewish situation have been placed throughout the Big Apple as a way to draw attention to their dire situation. However, there have also been plenty of viral videos of people removing posters.
The recent arrests come a week after two young women were caught on camera tearing off posters of Israeli child hostages while shouting ‘f***k Israel’. Sisters Aya and Dana were seen tearing up notices posted around Broadway and 79th Street on the Upper West Side of New York City.
They were confronted by passerby Marilyn Adler, who was walking down the street with her two daughters. When Adler urged them to stop tearing up the posters, the duo launched a barrage of abuse against them.
Footage shows one of the sisters shouting: ‘f***k you, f***k Israel’. The other woman said: ‘f***k you, b***h’
‘They wouldn’t let me say a word. They said it was Israeli propaganda. They said Israel had made up the hostages together with AI,” Adler’s daughter Melissa said New York Post.
“I said, ‘Please talk to me.’ They kept shouting at me. They just cursed me and shouted at me. I was just stunned.
‘They looked at me with eyes full of hatred. They hate me simply because I am a Jew. They don’t even know me.’
Sisters Aya and Dana were seen this week tearing up posters placed around Broadway and 79th Street on New York’s Upper West Side
After the video went viral on Twitter, their father Hasan Bakaret, who immigrated to New York from Lebanon more than 35 years ago, told the After that he did not teach them about the religious aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Now that they’re coming to America, they’re good girls. I taught them but never mentioned the religion. It’s not about Jews and Muslims. It is about land, power and who is in control,” he said.
“And now my daughters are watching images of babies dying, buildings collapsing on people. It does something.’
Bakaret told the publication that he spoke to his daughters after their confrontation. While he condemned their offensive language, he stressed that the pair are not anti-Semitic and that their actions were taken out of context.
He claims that Adler provoked his daughters and that she snatched a photo of a dead Palestinian baby from Aya’s hand.
“I know my daughter shouldn’t curse F-words, but at the same time I wanted to understand. They said, ‘Dad, it’s not true what they say, it started like this and ended like this, but it didn’t show why it happened.’
“What happened in Manhattan to my daughters, I believe them. The lady provoked them, stole a photo of the baby from their hands and told her, “This will continue to happen to you as long as you support these people.”
The White House says Israel has agreed to daily four-hour humanitarian breaks in its attack on Hamas in northern Gaza to get hostages out. Smoke rises from the town of Sderot after Israeli airstrikes on Thursday
Joe Biden said it had taken “longer than I hoped” to secure the humanitarian breaks
On Thursday, Israel agreed to impose four-hour daily humanitarian breaks in its attack on Hamas in northern Gaza to get hostages out, the White House announced today.
Joe Biden had asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a phone call on Monday to impose the daily breaks.
The timing of each break will be announced three hours in advance and they will begin today, White House National Security Spokesman John Kirby confirmed.
The move comes as Biden said he had dim hopes for a long-term ceasefire in Gaza and that Israeli forces were engaged in a brutal street war with Hamas.
Fighting has intensified in the 34 days since Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel on October 7, and tensions in the region have led to attacks on US forces by Iran-backed allies.
Palestinians have been forced to flee the north of the enclave on foot with only a few belongings
Smoke rises in the background as Palestinian families flee Gaza City and other parts of northern Gaza for southern areas
Palestinians are trying to flee northern Gaza and move south to avoid Israeli aerial bombardment and the intensification of their ground operations.
Biden also warned that he was prepared to order more airstrikes in the Middle East in retaliation for attacks on US forces.
The president said he sent two F-15s to attack Iranian Revolutionary Guard weapons depots in Syria because “they hit us.”
When asked about the “chances” of a ceasefire in Gaza outside the White House before a trip to Illinois, he said: “None. No possibility.’
He added that the US remains “optimistic” and that all hostages captured during the October 7 terrorist attack will be released.
The total destruction is the result of more than a month of war sparked by the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, when gunmen from the Islamist group crossed the Gaza border into Israel and, according to Israeli officials, killed 1,400 people and about seized 240 hostages. the worst attack in the country’s history.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and retaliated with an aerial bombardment and a ground offensive. More than 10,500 people, including many children, have been killed in the past 32 days of fighting in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry.