25 pro-Palestinian protesters disrupting Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade arrested

NEW YORK CITY (TNND) — Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested Thursday after temporarily blocking the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, a New York City Police Department (NYPD) spokesperson confirmed.

A total of 25 protesters were arrested at West 55th Street and Sixth Avenue around 9:25 a.m. An “unplanned demonstration” was blocking the paradeway at the time, according to an NYPD spokesperson.

Each of the protesters was detained without incident and later issued a summons for trespassing, the spokesman said.

Videos of the incident shared online show protesters chanting “free, free Palestine” and carrying Palestinian flags and a banner saying “do not celebrate genocide.” Footage shows the parade’s Ronald McDonald balloon standing behind protesters.

In the footage, spectators of the parade can be heard booing the protesters before cheering when police officers arrived.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have taken to the streets of New York City throughout this year to protest the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. More than 200 protesters in October arrested At a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside the New York Stock Exchange.

The NYPD wrote at the time that 206 people had been detained as members of Jewish Voice for Peace and that it had “shut down” the exchange on social media demanding that the US stop providing support to Israel and “profit from genocide.”

Just days earlier, anti-Israel protesters had also flooded several New York City neighborhoods to mark the first anniversary of the start of the Israel-Hamas war. The demonstrations were largely planned by Within Our Lifetime, a pro-Palestinian advocacy group that at the time called on New Yorkers via social media to “stand with Gaza and lift up by any means necessary the Palestinian people who are resisting genocide.”

Referring to those taken hostage in Israel on October 7, 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul wrote on Thursday

“Let us pray that they will be safely reunited with their families this time next year,” said Governor Hochul.