March 3 (UPI) — Hundreds of people endured the rain in New York City, joined by actress Susan Sarandon, and the Boston area on Saturday to call for a ceasefire in Gaza while other groups demonstrated in Baltimore, Washington, Albuquerque, and Charlotte.
The New York rally began at Washington Square Park around 1 p.m. and demonstrators marched up Lower Manhattan to the outside of the New York Public Library’s flagship location in Midtown. Protesters simultaneously hit the streets of Cambridge outside of Boston.
“There are hundreds more across Manhattan, hundreds of thousands across the U.S., millions globally who are standing for Palestine for justice, for a ceasefire,” Sarandon told the crowd in New York, according to WNBC.
However, tensions rose at one point during the protest when an NYPD vehicle had to make its way through the tight crowd to rush to a call of a possible grenade in Times Square.
“This is audio of the NYPD response to a citizen’s call where they thought they saw a grenade. Thankfully it was fake. But you know what was real? The danger caused by ‘protesters’ who blocked our emergency response!” NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Doughtry said on social media. It was not immediately clear what Doughtry meant by putting protesters inside quotations.
Meanwhile, NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper called protesters blocking the street “super reckless” and “extremely dangerous.” And Jeffrey Maddrey, the NYPD chief of department, referred to the incident as a “bomb” scare as he said the protesters need to be “held accountable.”Ultimately, 11 people were arrested during the New York protest, according to police.
Meanwhile, hundreds of ultra-orthodox Jews blocked a highway to protest Israel’s conscription law amid the war in Gaza, chanting: “We will die and not be mobilized.”
“Highway 4 was opened to traffic — hundreds of protesters demonstrated illegally on Highway 4, blocked the road and clashed with police officers,” Israeli Police said on social media. The highway runs from Gaza to Tel Aviv.”During the evacuation of some of the protesters, the police had to use force in order to open the road. The demonstration ended and all the roads in the area were opened to traffic.”
Police in Israel arrested the driver of a car who was seen speeding down Route 20 with a protester calling for national elections and the return of hostages from Gaza on the hood of his car in Tel Aviv. The driver was described as a 28-year-old resident of Jerusalem. But police also issued a summons to the protester seen in a video of the incident blocking traffic.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that his government would find a way to end such exemptions from Israeli military service.
