NEW YORK — The NYPD has dispatched officers to patrol yeshivas, synagogues, and other Jewish sites throughout the five boroughs following Israel’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in the Middle East, the department said Friday.

“The NYPD is tracking the situation in the Middle East,” the NYPD said on X. “Out of an abundance of caution, we’re deploying additional resources to Jewish, Israeli & other sites throughout NYC. We’re coordinating with our federal partners & we’ll continue to monitor for any potential impact to NYC.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced late Thursday that he has ordered his military to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear and missile sites to head off an imminent threat that Iran would build nuclear bombs, though it remains unclear how close the country is to achieving that or whether Iran had actually been planning a strike.

Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only.

“It could be a year. It could be within a few months,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed as he vowed to pursue the attack for as long as necessary to “remove this threat.”

The Israeli attack killed Iran’s top military officers and ramped up the potential for an all-out war in the Middle East. Iran quickly retaliated to the Israeli offensive, sending a swarm of drones at Israel as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned of “severe punishment.”

President Donald Trump urged Iran to reach a deal with Washington on its nuclear program, warning on his Truth Social platform that Israel’s attacks “will only get worse.”

The NYPD had already ordered additional patrols at Jewish sites throughout the city following violent antisemitic attacks at a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C. that left two Jewish embassy workers dead and a flamethrower attack on Jewish marchers in Boulder, Colo.

The department’s decision to focus primarily on Jewish locales in the city as the conflict in the Middle East escalates drew criticism on social media.

“What about Iranian and Muslim communities? Are they not deserving of the NYPD’s protection?” poster @girlbosswoman wrote on X.

The writer for @LordStirling_ agreed.

“Who is NYPD to take sides in a foreign conflict?” the X post asked. “And to protect the aggressors who attacked unprovoked?

The NYPD has seen an uptick in antisemitic crimes in the city since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, 2023.

Mayor Eric Adams last month said that displays of antisemitism in New York City since then have been “constant.”

While the NYPD saw a 54% drop in anti-Jewish hate crimes in May compared to the same month last year, from 52 to 24, the number of antisemitic incidents amounted to nearly 60% of all hate crimes investigated that month, officials said.

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