Journalist held in NYPD kettle while covering protest near synagogue

Multimedia journalist A.B. Youssef was held in a police kettle while covering a protest in New York, New York, on May 5, 2026.

The protest was taking place near a synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that was holding an event to promote real estate sales in Israel and Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, the latter of which are widely believed to violate international law.

The New York City Police Department formed a buffer zone around the synagogue, prohibiting access to the block it was located on and directing pro-Palestinian and a smaller group of pro-Israel protesters, as well as press, onto surrounding avenues, according to news reports and journalists who spoke to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

Youssef told the Tracker that he and other journalists were documenting NYPD officers blocking off a sidewalk with metal barricades and pushing protesters back. The officers then formed a circle around the group of press with the barricades and told them they couldn’t leave.

“I was telling them, ‘You can’t lock us in here,’” he said. “And they just didn’t care.” He said he was wearing his New York City press credential and holding his camera gear, adding that many of the officers saw him often and knew who he was.

Video posted on social media by two other journalists who were in the kettle, Talia Ben-Ora and Neil Constantine, shows uniformed police and plainclothes public information officers placing metal barricades around a group of press, separating them from the area where the NYPD was pushing protesters back.

Youssef said the NYPD didn’t explain why they were penning them in, and gave conflicting instructions.

“They were saying, ‘Go out that way.’ And I said, ‘Where? That way is blocked too.’”

He said he was kept in that area for at least 10 minutes.

The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment.