NYPD: Israel-Hamas war has city on 'heightened alert,' but no threat imminent

New York City continues to be on “heightened alert” because of the war in the Middle East, but authorities have no evidence of an imminent threat here, NYPD officials said Monday.

Rebecca Weiner, NYPD’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, told reporters that despite the alert status, New Yorkers should carry on their normal activities.

“We do remain on heightened alert,” which “will stay in place until the conflict is resolved in such a way that we no longer need them here,” Weiner said.

“We are not seeing any evidence of any specific, imminent or credible threat to New York City at this time,” she added.

The “heightened posture” is due not only to what is happening in Israel, but also because various organizations have called for attacks around the world, she said.

Officials placed the city on heightened alert status after the militant group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing at least 1,400 people, most of them civilians.

Israel has responded with a bombing campaign in the Gaza strip. More than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said Monday. 

Many New Yorkers have been asking over the last two weeks whether they should send their children to school, go to work and conduct other routine activities, Weiner said.

“We have emphatically said, ‘Yes, absolutely, you should be doing everything just as you normally were,’ ” she said.

“This is a heightened threat environment. This is very much in keeping with other moments in our city’s recent history,” she said. “The types of threats that we are particularly attuned to are the types of threats that New York City has grappled with quite successfully over the last 15 years.”

Det. Charlie Benaim, the NYPD's foreign liaison assigned to Israel, spoke to reporters about the situation on the ground there. He is based in the capital, Tel Aviv.

Beyond the conflict zones in southern and northern Israel, “life in central Israel is pretty much normal, meaning people go to work, people send their kids to school,” he said. “Even though there is a war going on, life in Israel for the most part is pretty regular.”