EGyptian government employees wielding a chain and stick detained and assaulted a 22-year-old man and his 15-year-old brother at the Egyptian Mission to the United Nations during a pro-Palestine protest in New York on Wednesday, the brothers’ parents told The Intercept. The New York City Police Department then arrested the two brothers on assault charges, and strangulation for the younger one, according to their parents and an NYPD spokesperson.

Yasin Elsamak, 22, and Ali Elsamak, 15, both U.S. citizens, were protesting the Egyptian government’s role in blockading the Rafah crossing into Gaza, cutting off essential food aid amid Israel’s ongoing genocide, their parents said.

Egyptian officials grabbed the teenager and dragged him and his older brother, who had attempted to intervene, inside the building, according to their parents and video of the incident published on social media. Their parents alleged that inside the building, Egyptian officials continued to beat Yasin in the legs with sticks before choking him with a chain and his own keffiyeh.

The Egyptian government did not immediately respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.

A video posted on X shows one man wrapping what appears to be a chain around the neck of one of the brothers, whom the family identified as Yasin, while another man beat him with a stick-like object. Another man is seen wrestling the other brother, identified by family as Ali, to the ground.

New York Police Department officers arrested the brothers on suspicion of assault but did not take any of the Egyptian government officials into custody, the family said.

Their father, Akram Elsamak, said NYPD officers had turned him........

© The Intercept