Following the Israel-Hamas war, there's been an increase in antisemitism and Islamophobia in New York and around the U.S. The Council on American Islamic Relations reports the number of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias incidents recently tripled in a nearly two-month period compared with the average from the year before.

Queens native Maryam Shuaib was working on a social media post when she was verbally attacked.

A man walked by and called her a terrorist. “Stop killing innocent people. Terrorist,” he yelled at her.

The words stopped her. She said she didn’t realize the impact the incident would have on her.

“To be called a terrorist in that aspect, is disrespectful, it is demeaning, it is deteriorating to who I am as a Palestinian and who I am as a Muslim,” Shuaib said. “And as a Palestinian and as a Muslim, I stand for liberation.”

The St. Francis College senior wears her Palestinian scarf and hijab with pride and condemns the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 when roughly 1,200 Israelis were killed, saying the taking of innocent lives is deplorable.

However, she believes in standing up for the Palestinian people amid a mounting death toll in Gaza.

Moath Hamzeh said he was harassed at a pro-Palestinian protest in Manhattan.

“I was literally carrying my son, who is two years old, and a lady felt the need to come up to my face, and actually say that I’m a terrorist,” Hamzeh said. “The group we were in, a very multicultural group, of all races, faiths and walks of life, she essentially went up to us and said you all should die, all you terrorists should die.”

The 38-year-old said that moment hit him hard. Born and raised in the U.S., Hamzeh said growing up he was ashamed of his Palestinian identity, feelings amplified by discrimination after the terror attacks on 9/11.

“I was constantly faced with a lot of racism and harassment. I was bullied a lot in my childhood whenever I mentioned that I’m Palestinian,” Hamzeh said.

“This is an issue that transcends way beyond being Muslim, or being Jewish, or being Christian or whatever you believe in,” Brooklyn resident Ragad Abdelfatah said.

Abdelfatah said she also embraces her Palestinian roots. The first-generation American works in tech sales and said she was surrounded at a corporate event by people who peppered her with questions about Hamas’ attack on Israel, only to be wrongfully accused of supporting terrorism when she questioned Israel’s military campaign and the loss of innocent Palestinian lives.

“I was labeled a terrorist sympathizer, an extremist, because I asked some difficult questions pertaining pertaining to what led up to the [Oct. 7] incident,” she said. “These people who knew me for years quickly put a label on me, and I truly believe it’s because of my Palestinian heritage.”

The NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force reported four bias incidents targeting Muslims in December 2023. A big jump from the one reported in December 2022.

John Jay College Professor Frank Pezzella said hate crimes are significantly under reported.

“Some of the groups with the most strained relationships with police are least likely to report because of what we like to call in scholarship, the absence of legitimacy,” Pezzella said. “They don’t perceive the police as legitimate arbiters of justice.”

Meanwhile, Shuaib started to carry pepper spray and a taser after the incident, and enrolled in self-defense classes.

“I didn’t necessarily think that anyone was capable of calling another person a terrorist, when all that person was doing was just standing for their rights,” Shuaib said.

She said she will continue to embrace and display her heritage regardless of the consequences.