Seven Pro-Palestinian activists were taken into custody by police during mass protests in Manhattan marking one year since the beginning of the ongoing Hamas-Israeli conflict, officials said Tuesday.
The protesters were all taken into custody near the New York Stock Exchange on Wall St. around 1:20 p.m. Monday, where demonstrators complained that cops forced them into a barricaded area on Broad St. and Exchange Place a half a block away.
Two of the seven were given summonses to appear in Manhattan Criminal Court at a later date, cops said. The remaining five were criminally charged with resisting arrest, misdemeanor assault, and obstructing government administration for clashing with police, an NYPD spokesman said. One demonstrator was additionally charged with making graffiti.
Officials said the pro-Palestinian protesters could not stay in front of the stock exchange because demonstrators had spray painted there in the past.
“We’re seeing an abridgement of our freedom of speech rights, our right to assembly,” Nerdeen Kiswani, 30, chair of Within our Lifetime, which organized the protest, said Monday as the clash unfolded. “We were standing in front of the New York Stock Exchange because this is where major manufacturing, weapons manufacturers are traded, where Wall Street pockets blood money using our tax dollars to fund thousands of tons of bombs on the people of Gaza.”
Pro-Palestinian New York City demonstrators marked the Oct. 7 anniversary with massive protests at Washington Square Park and Morningside Heights, matching wits with cops and college officials who were trying to stay ahead of the crowds.
Students from more than a dozen local college campuses walked out of class and headed to Washington Square Park, before joining a larger citywide protest organized by the pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime. The organization was originally formed by local students at the City University of New York.
Bloodshed marred the mostly peaceful demonstrations when Todd Richman, a New Yorker holding an Israeli flag was ambushed by pro-Palestinian demonstrators marching past Union Square.
No arrests have been made in that attack.
On Oct. 7, 2023, the terrorist group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel that killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli official figures. Hamas took 251 hostages back to Gaza and a year later some 64 are still detained while 117 have been freed and 70 confirmed dead.
Israel, in turn, launched an invasion that has since resulted in the deaths of more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, more than half of whom were women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
