Two Orthodox Jewish women were assaulted in New York by a man who mistook them for Muslims.

The mother and daughter, aged 57 and 37, were beaten at a subway station in Queens, on Wednesday afternoon (13 September).

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Eyewitnesses said their attacker shouted "Go back to your f***ing country you dirty Muslims," at the women as they were walking toward the exit of the 67th Avenue station in Forest Hills.

When the younger woman asked him to repeat his insult, the man reportedly spat at her and said: "Get out of my country, you dirty Muslim." He then started to punch both women's faces and bodies.

Police arrested the man, who has been named as 40-year-old Dimitrios Zias, and charged him with assault as a hate crime.

Zias was previously arrested in 2015 for aiming his cellphone camera up a woman's skirt in a New York department store.

Hate crimes against Muslims have soared since President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning citizens of several Muslim-majority countries from entering the US.

The number of Islamophobic incidents involving US Customs and Border Protection Officials rose by almost 1,000% in the first six months after Trump took office, according to a report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

In total, CAIR recorded 260 anti-Muslim crimes in the first six months of 2017, including physical attacks against individuals and places of worship, in addition to 2,123 anti-Muslim incidents, including cases of companies banning their employees from wearing a hijab and prisoners being prevented from having a Quran in their cell.

Laura Pitter, a senior national security counsel for Human Rights Watch (HRW), called on Trump to publicly condemn Islamophobic attacks.

"Trump should be much more forceful in speaking out against acts of violent intolerance, especially since his own rhetoric and executive actions have so consistently scapegoated Muslims," she said.