Red graffiti reading “Pal Action” was sprayed on the building, while “Drop Elbit” was painted on the front door.
By Shula Rosen
The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating vandalism at a Capital One branch on Manhattan’s Upper East Side after the pro-Palestinian group Palestine Action claimed responsibility for smashing windows and spray-painting messages targeting the bank over its alleged financial relationship with Israeli defense company Elbit Systems.
The vandalism occurred around 7:50 a.m. Monday, October 19, 2026, at the branch on East 86th Street near Second Avenue, according to ABC7 New York.
Police said someone threw a brick through a window, leaving shattered glass and damage to the branch.
Red graffiti reading “Pal Action” was sprayed on the building, while “Drop Elbit” was painted on the front door.
Palestine Action claimed responsibility and accused Capital One of loaning Elbit Systems more than a half-billion dollars for Israel’s weapons. The activist group protests companies with connections to Israeli defense firms and has previously targeted Capital One over its loans to Elbit.
“We will no longer allow this country, and the companies that plague it, to be involved in the genocide of the Palestinian people without answering for their crimes,” Palestine Action said in a statement.
The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is examining the vandalism as a possible bias incident.
New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, who represents the district and is Jewish, condemned the attack.
“It’s terrible,” Menin said. “What we’re seeing, the explosion of hate crimes throughout New York City is actually outrageous,” she said.
Lance Robinson, a Jewish resident of the neighborhood, questioned what the vandalism could accomplish.
“I just think it makes absolutely zero sense. As a Jewish man you could be upset with the government. You could be upset with whatever you want to be but what it’s this going to do for the community, for the world, for Palestine? Nothing,” Robinson told ABC7 Eye Witness News.
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