BY ROMAN BROSZKOWSKI | news@queensledger.com
Activists and elected officials protested at JFK last Wednesday as part of a campaign to expose and disrupt weapons and explosives that pass through the airport en route to Israel.
When he arrived last week in New York to speak at the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose not to fly into any of the civilian airports around the city.
And yet roughly two dozen pro-Palestine activists still gathered outside of JFK Airport’s Terminal 8 last Wednesday to protest his government’s actions in Gaza, and to highlight another connection between them and New York’s airports: the tons of weapons components and explosive material that regularly pass through JFK, Newark, and the Port of Elizabeth on their way to the Israeli military.
The event was organized as part of a campaign called Break the Chain, which seeks to enforce what it calls a “people’s embargo” — the non-cooperation of workers in Israel’s military supply chain. Break the Chain estimates that over 1000 tons of military cargo a week pass through local seaports and airports on their way to Israel, citing reporting from DropSite News and data compiled by the Palestine Youth Movement.
It was attended by community activists from the Palestine Youth Movement, Jewish Voices for Peace, Rockaway for Palestine, and Communications Workers of America for Palestine as well as elected officials and Democratic nominees for office, including New York State Senator Jabari Brisport, State Senate candidate Aber Kawas and State legislative candidates Brian Romero and David Orkin.
“We are folks of conscience who are disgusted by the fact that JFK is moving bombs on civilian infrastructure, passenger airplanes,” said Bassel Al-Khalili, a communications coordinator for Break the Chain. “Our goal today is to shed some light and begin our process here of really organizing against the consistent threat that we’re seeing against everyday New Yorkers, against the New Yorkers who work at this airport, the cargo handlers, and the baggage handlers.”
Speakers focused specifically on the transfer of nitrocellulose as a particular danger to passengers and workers. The material is a component in making ammunition and has been linked to deadly accidents, including a 2015 incident in Tianjin, China that killed 173 people and injured 798.
“One accident, one overlooked leak. One mishandled shipment and the workers closest to it don’t get a warning. They get a blast radius,” said Reema Hijazi, a union organizer who led Wednesday’s event. “Every family flying through JFK deserves to know, is the plane next to yours carrying vacationers or explosives?
Those concerns about workers’ safety were also reiterated by Chris Mills Rodrigo, an organizer with the CWA for Palestine.
“Even if nothing goes wrong with the shipments, the very fact that they are on the planes puts attendants and passenger service workers at risk by marking planes as potential targets,” he said. “Communication Workers for Palestine demand the Port Authority and federal regulators immediately halt the shipment of military and explosive cargo through civilian airports.”
In a statement to the Queens Ledger, a spokesperson with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said that all aircraft cargo moving through JFK “are subject to security screening protocols mandated and overseen by federal regulatory authorities,” and that the legality of said cargo is outside the authority’s jurisdiction.
“The federal government and commercial airlines have primary responsibility as to what is allowed to be shipped on aircraft,” the spokesperson wrote. “We are pre-empted under federal law from interfering with these activities.”
As the rally was held in a pen set up by authorities next to the terminal’s parking garage , it’s unclear what impact it had on travelers.
However, residents of the nearby Rockaways and members of Rockaway for Palestine were in attendance and spoke about feeling ignored by their congressional representative on this issue.
“[We are] a collection of neighbors living in the Rockaway Peninsula, just south of here, with airplanes always taking off and landing over us,” said Ibrahim Mossallam, an airline pilot and member of Rockaway for Palestine. “We are here in Gregory Meeks’ district who has clearly severed and kept his distance about dealing with this issue. He sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee and has a lot of weight in ending a lot of what’s happening. And unfortunately as you can see he’s not here.”
Wednesday was not the first time that protesters had attempted to draw attention to transfer of weapons and explosives through JFK. In July, activists attempted to hold a protest at JFK to oppose a flight carrying military hardware to Israel, but were blocked from accessing terminals. Nor is JFK the only location that protesters have targeted. Since 2024, regular demonstrations have been held at the Brooklyn Navy Yard against the tenancy of two companies, Crye Precision and Easy Aerial. The latter — which held contracts with the US Airforce and sold equipment to the IDF — did not have its lease renewed in February 2026.
