After flooding a Brooklyn suburb on Saturday, thousands of anti-Israel protestors refused to leave, leading to altercations between them and police in Bay Ridge.
As night struck, demonstrators at the ‘Flood Brooklyn for Palestine’ event broke out in a flurry of chaos, blocking traffic, yelling at police, and starting minor fires.
After thousands of protesters poured into a mostly Arab and Middle Eastern neighbourhood in Brooklyn on Saturday night, chaos broke out between the police and the anti-Israel demonstrators.
Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanted “move, cops, get out of the way” during the protests in Bay Ridge.
They surrounded the neighbourhood, preventing traffic and setting fires, saying, “We know you’re Israeli-trained.”
As night struck, the demonstrators—who were part of a march dubbed Flood Brooklyn for Palestine online—began to fight with police, as shown in the video, and their numbers grew to an estimated 5,000 during the day.
Then, when they were trying to get them away of a Fifth Avenue crossroads where they had stopped traffic, footage of NYPD officers was captured.
During this time, an unknown number of pro-Palestinian people were detained and imprisoned.A number of them were spotted striking demonstrators during the altercation, which broke out as demonstrators gathered to call for the US to stop supporting Israel.
Many members of the gathering disobeyed the police’s orders while brandishing Palestinian flags and banners.
Protesters could be heard yelling, “Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want no Zionists here!” from within the crowd, which was mostly contained by police to the area surrounding 72nd Street and Fifth Avenue.
Others exclaimed, holding placards that said, “We stand with Palestine,” “Once upon a time… There was humanity,” and other similar phrases.
“We will free Palestine within our lifetime!” they said.
Other, more extreme attendees, who ranged in age from seniors to preteens, brandished signs bearing scribbles insisting that “Zionism is genocide” and “Resistance is justified when people are occupied.
“The statements seemed to ignore, if not outright deny, the crimes committed by Hamas since October 9, including the abduction of multiple Americans and Israelis in what appeared to be a declaration of war.
Even while the fight is now taking place abroad, internal conflicts have since emerged domestically, leading to opposing protests around the country.
This Saturday was no different in Bay Ridge, even though NYPD officers prevented pro-Israelis from joining the procession.
Over the course of the evening, however, footage shot in the neighbourhood revealed how the protest continued to spiral out of control, with the officers assigned to maintain order soon finding themselves overrun as the crowd increased.
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