New York City police arrested a number of pro-Gaza protesters on Monday outside the New York Stock Exchange after a demonstration highlighting Israel's ongoing attacks on Gaza and Lebanon.
Demonstrators chanted chants such as “Let Gaza live!” “If we go up with liberation, we go down with occupation!'' And they managed to sneak inside a security fence outside the Exchange on Broad Street in downtown Manhattan.
Then they sat and waited for police to take them into custody. According to the Associated Press.
Jewish Voice for Peace, which organized the protest, said:.200 Jews risk arrest in the largest act of civil disobedience in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. ”
“Stock prices are going up even though children are dying. When Israel drops bombs on homes, schools and hospitals in the Gaza Strip, Wall Street booms and all the members of Congress who invest in these companies… are getting richer every day,” Jay Saper of Jewish Voice for Peace said in a press release.
video In a protest posted on Twitter/X by independent journalist Noah Hurowicz, a large number of protesters walked briskly towards the exchange, converging in front of the entrance and blocking the exchange. It shows that there are. Police told some media outlets that up to 200 people had been arrested.
Asked to confirm the number of arrests, a spokesperson for the NYPD said there had been multiple arrests, but the final number was not yet available. Police were also seen detaining credentialed journalists and then releasing them soon after, Hurowicz said. said With X.
The demonstration took place a week after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. Hamas fighters have invaded Israel from Gaza, killing 1,200 people, including more than 40 Americans, and taking at least 251 hostages, nearly 100 of whom remain in Gaza. According to NBC News.
Israel has since carried out military operations in Gaza. Gaza Health Ministry says more than 41,000 people have died, ABC News said.
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The Israel-Gaza war has spread to other parts of the region, raising fears of further military action, especially if Iran launches a larger-scale attack. On October 8, 2023, Hezbollah, allied with Iran, began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas.
The conflict has escalated in recent days as Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley and the southern outskirts of Beirut, and has deployed ground troops across the border.
“At this very moment, the Israeli military is massacring families one after another in northern Gaza using American-made bombs. We want people to believe that we are here to help,” Jewish Voice for Peace organizational strategy director Elena Stein said in a press release.
“We are here refusing to be used as a moral cover for the United States and refusing to expose its true interests of economic gain and dominance in the region. Now with an arms embargo. “There are,” Stein said.
