The Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNY) will not renew its lease with Easy Aerial, a drone manufacturer that supplies weapons to Israel.

Easy Aerial is headquartered in Brooklyn, but has offices in Gan HaShomron, Israel. It was founded by former IDF soldiers. The company’s Chief Product Officer told Truthout that their products found “an immediate need after October 7.”

A BNY spokesperson claimed that the decision was made “for business reasons related to operational and campus compliance matters.” However, the move comes after more than a year of protest and community organizing targeting the landlord’s connections to the genocide in Gaza. The campaign Demilitarize Brooklyn Navy Yard (DBNY) organizes weekly noise demonstrations at the site, where they also hand out flyers.

Last September, organizer and journalist Joseph Mogul detailed DBNY’s campaign at Mondoweiss.

“Before the public launch of their campaign in September 2024, a group of organizers who became part of Demilitarize Brooklyn Navy Yard were discouraged by the state of the Palestine Solidarity movement,” he wrote. “Israel had consistently escalated its genocide in Gaza, but it seemed like the movement was unwilling or incapable of meeting the gravity of the moment. Marches through Union Square were easily ignored, and sporadic, escalated actions were too disjointed.”

“Symbolic solidarity is not enough,” one DBNY organizer told Mogul. “How can we escalate to material solidarity?”

In a statement, DBNY celebrated BNY’s decision but noted that it is still targeting Crye Precision, which also has a lease at the yard. The company supplies body armor to the U.S. military, law enforcement, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security.

“Every single action, every sticker put up, and every letter they [BNY] received contributed to our coordinated effort to evict this fascist weapons manufacturer,” read the statement. “Implementing a multiplicity of tactics, including direct action, political education, worker outreach, and deep community organizing, worked to materially impact the supply chains of imperialism, zionism, and fascism.”

“We will keep fighting until the Brooklyn Navy Yard is demilitarized, ICE and IOF suppliers are out of New York, and the resistance continues until Palestine is FREE!,” it continued.

Pro-Israel lawmakers are condemning the move, attributing BNY’s decision to an antisemitic conspiracy that involves NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

“Chasing good jobs out of New York because Mr. Mamdani and his friends hate Jews is probably not a very good economic development program,” State Assemblyman Kalman Yeger (D-Brooklyn) told the New York Post.

“Deeply disturbing,” tweeted Rep. Elise Stefanik. “We need more voices strongly condemning this taxpayer funded antisemitism from the NYC Mayor’s office.”

Rümeysa Öztürk case

Last week, an immigration judge terminated removal proceedings against Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) failed to meet the burden of proof for removability.

Öztürk, a Turkish PhD student, was arrested by masked ICE agents in Somerville, Massachusetts, in March 2025 and held in detention for 45 days before a federal judge ordered her release on bail.

Recently unsealed documents reveal that Öztürk was targeted by the Trump administration for co-authoring a Tufts Daily op-ed that called for her school to embrace a campus BDS campaign.

“Today, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that despite the justice system’s flaws, my case may give hope to those who have also been wronged by the U.S. government,” Öztürk wrote in a statement. “Though the pain that I and thousands of other women wrongfully imprisoned by ICE have faced cannot be undone, it is heartening to know that some justice can prevail after all.”

In a piece at The Intercept, Advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation Director Seth Stern points out that the government’s case fell apart, not because the legal system worked correctly, but because whistleblowers leaked information about it.

Stern notes that the Trump team has a vested interest in keeping the details of these cases secret to avoid such outcomes.

“Transparency doesn’t just hinder the unconstitutional targeting of immigrants — it makes it harder for the government to trample on the rest of our rights. This administration doesn’t value the First Amendment rights of citizens any more than those of noncitizens; immigrants are just the low-hanging fruit,” he writes.

“The way for the press to win the administration’s war against leaks is to publish more of them, and connect the dots when they’re proven correct, like in Öztürk’s case,” Stern continued. “That way, the administration’s alarmist narratives about leaks don’t get more press than their inevitable collapse.”

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