Federal, state, and local police across the country head into Friday on high alert in anticipation of a global “day of rage” following a call by Hamas.
On Thursday, former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal called for neighboring countries to join the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, in its fight against Israel and for empathizers across the Muslim world to protest in unison. Hamas is an Islamist terrorist organization predominant in the Gaza Strip of the Palestinian territories.
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“[We must] head to the squares and streets of the Arab and Islamic world on Friday," said Meshaal, the head of Hamas's diaspora office, in an oral statement obtained by Reuters.
Israel’s National Security Council and Foreign Ministry issued a warning Thursday that the Hamas leadership had called for supporters to “go out and harm Israelis and Jews.”
“From this it is likely that there will be protest events in various countries around the world, which may develop into violent events," the Israeli offices said in a joint statement.
Concern over the threat of jihad, violence, and terror attacks has grown since this weekend's unprovoked attack in Israel by Hamas militants who killed more than 1,000 Israelis, as well as raped, tortured, and beheaded women and infants during the hourslong attack. Along with the deaths in Gaza as Israel counterattacked, the toll is more than 2,700 lives lost, including 27 Americans. Fourteen Americans are still missing.
An Anti-Defamation League official said calls for violence from Hamas are not unprecedented but have become more common in the West.
"Right now, we're concerned about the vulnerability of the Jewish community, and the possibility of violence targeting the community," said Oren Segal, ADL Center on Extremism vice president, in an interview with NBC News. "We’re seeing how white supremacists online are glorifying what happened in Israel. We are also seeing organization on the left at rallies and other events who justify and celebrate that violence as well."
The Biden administration is buckling down on the U.S. homefront ahead of Friday while defense and State Department leaders travel to Israel in a show of support.
Senior Biden administration officials who spoke with the press on a call Thursday evening said the government is not tracking any known threats to the United States.
"We have no specific or credible threat to the homeland at this time, but are encouraging members of the public and all of our partners to stay vigilant and stay informed," said one administration official.
A second administration official said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was monitoring the situation, including how the department can support local and state law enforcement, tracking cyber and physical environments, and supporting U.S.-based domestic faith-based organizations and communities.
Across the country, local police departments are also preparing for a worst-case scenario.
The U.S. Capitol Police enhanced security in Washington following the call to action from Hamas leaders. While there are no specific threats to Congress, police said in a statement, "We are not taking any chances."
New York City is home to 1.9 million of the country’s 7.5 million Jewish people. The city’s Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, a former New York Police Department officer himself, said all 36,000 NYPD officers are required to report in uniform Friday.
Rebecca Weiner, NYPD deputy commissioner of the intelligence and counterterrorism division, said the organization is also taking significant action behind the scenes.
"There's the part that you see, which involves a lot of officers, some of our counterterrorism officers, our Critical Response Command folks who are high visibility patrols, heavy weapons armed and trained to respond to locations throughout the city, schools, houses of worship, sensitive locations," Weiner said during a press conference Thursday. "Then there's the intelligence side, which is the part that you don't see — the online monitoring for threats and making sure that we can anticipate whether there's any reflection back to the city based on the overseas events."
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Adams said the city was taking an extremely proactive approach to be ready for what may come Friday.
“This is really an opportunity. We have to be on high alert. We cannot let our guards down," Adams said.