US arrests 14 activists for protesting against Israel attack on Gaza

Fourteen protesters were arrested by police outside Senator Chuck Schumer’s Midtown office in New York City yesterday in an action organised by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

According to reports, JVP “held a traditional Jewish mourning ceremony for those who have died in Gaza outside Schumer’s office and blocked the entrance to the building”.

JVP member Leo Grossman said: “Someone must have heard that we were doing this and tipped off the cops. The cops were here when we got here.” Grossman added the cops intervened right when the mourning ceremony began.

“That was a little rude,” he said. “We just wanted to make sure Sen. Schumer condemns the killings.”

Approximately 40 people showed up at the protest, which took place outside the New York senator’s Third Avenue office, “holding signs and lambasting Schumer for keeping silent on the killings by Israeli forces during a month-long Palestinian protest in the Gaza Strip”.

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NYPD officers handcuffed protesters and took them to the 7th Precinct on the Lower East Side, “where they are expected to be charged with civil disobedience-related offenses, cops said”.

According to a separate report, since 30 March “at least 51 American Jews have been arrested protesting against Israel’s lethal response to the Great March of Return”.

Read: Israel injures 77 health personnel, damages 14 ambulances in Gaza protests