New York.. 35 demonstrators were arrested during a march marking the anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba
On Saturday, American police arrested about 35 people during a march in support of Palestine in New York on the occasion of the 76th Nakba’s anniversery.
Most of the people were arrested because they were trying to march in Brooklyn to protest the Gaza War and the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Police arrested several demonstrators during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Brooklyn, New York, in the latest ongoing actions against anti-Gaza war voices in the United States.
Protesters gathered on Saturday in the Bay Ridge neighborhood in southwest Brooklyn, which is home to a sizable Muslim community, including people of Palestinian and Yemeni descent.
The peaceful protest to commemorate the Nakba – the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 – continued for several hours amid a heavy police presence as officers attempted to prevent the march.
Katie Smith, a freelance journalist who was at the scene, said that The demonstrators started marching down the street, and shortly after, the New York Police Department came from a side street and started arresting people randomly.
They were thrown to the ground and often arrested by several officers, who beat and punched them on the upper body and around their heads. There were multiple waves of arrests during the march, which was peaceful.
Smith said the local community’s reaction was “angry,” especially since Bay Ridge has seen pro-Palestinian marches for more than a decade. Still, the police response had never been so brutal.
Local sources said that at least twelve people were arrested on Saturday from a crowd of several hundred. Videos from the scene showed police pulling protesters away as people shouted at them to stop, and a line of handcuffed protesters was seen being loaded into a truck.
The New York Police Department made hundreds of arrests at protests demanding an end to the war on Gaza, including during a large-scale raid on the Columbia University campus at the beginning of May.
On Saturday, a crowd of several hundred people, including several Jewish protesters, demonstrated in Washington, D.C., in the rain to commemorate the 76th anniversary of the Nakba.
They are Palestinian Americans, and they are supporters, coming to the country’s capital chanting ‘Free Palestine’ and accusing U.S. President Joe Biden of complicity in genocide, it has reported from the scene.
Muhammad Habih, a member of the advocacy group American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), said community members are trying to educate people about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Earlier this month, Biden halted a shipment of about 3,500 massive bombs to Israel when the Israeli army launched a ground offensive on Rafah in southern Gaza – along with other areas in the besieged Strip – despite the dire humanitarian situation.
But Biden has promised that arms shipments to Israel will not stop entirely and is introducing a new $1 billion package that includes tank shells despite growing international condemnation.
