Several hundred people were arrested in New York on Friday during a demonstration organized by a Jewish movement against Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip, according to police and organizers.
New York police announced at least 200 arrests, and organizers said more than 300 people were arrested when the rally at New York’s Grand Central Station was broken up.
Photos taken at the scene showed long lines of handcuffed young men wearing black sweatshirts with the words “Not In Our Name” and “Cease Fire Now” written in white. fire now).
The massive sit-in was organized by the group Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City, which said several thousand participants blocked the main area of the station. It was “the largest act of civil disobedience that New York City has seen in twenty years,” he said.
Images showed the terminal was packed with protesters holding banners reading “Palestinians must be free” and “Mourn for the dead, fight like hell for the living.”
Rabbis opened the event by lighting Shabbat candles and reciting Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead.
“Shabbat is normally a day of rest, but we cannot afford to rest while genocide is taking place in our name,” Rabbi May Ye said in a statement released by organizers.
“The lives of Palestinians and Israelis are closely linked, and security can only come through justice, equality and freedom for all,” she added.
The health ministry of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that rules the Gaza Strip, confirmed that 7,326 people, mostly civilians, including more than 3,000 children, have been killed in bombings in the Palestinian territories since October 7 in Israeli retaliation.
According to authorities, more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Israel massacred by Hamas on October 7. This was the deadliest attack in Israel’s history.