NYC protesters demand Israeli cease-fire, at least 200 detained after filling Grand Central station

NEW YORK — A sea of masses of protesters stuffed the primary concourse of New York City’s famed Grand Central Terminal all over the night rush hour Friday, chanting slogans and unfurling banners tough a cease-fire as Israel intensified its bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Wearing black T-shirts announcing “Jews say cease-fire now” and “Not in our name,” at least 200 of the demonstrators had been detained via New York Police Department officials and led out of the teach station, their arms zip-tied at the back of their backs. The NYPD stated the protesters had been taken in short into custody, issued summonses and launched, and {that a} extra actual choice of detentions can be to be had Saturday morning.

Some protesters hoisted banners as they scaled the stone ledges in entrance of leaderboards record departure occasions. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority requested commuters to make use of Penn Station as a substitute. After the sit-in was once damaged up via police, the remainder protesters spilled into the streets outdoor.

“Hundreds of Jews and friends are taking over Grand Central Station in a historic sit-in calling for a ceasefire,” advocacy team Jewish Voice for Peace stated on social media.

The scene echoed remaining week’s sit-in on Capitol Hill in Washington, the place Jewish advocacy teams, together with Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now, poured right into a congressional workplace construction. More than 300 other people had been arrested for illegally demonstrating.

Israel stepped up airstrikes around the Gaza Strip on Friday, knocking out web and in large part reducing off communique with the two.3 million other people throughout the besieged Palestinian enclave. Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry says greater than 7,300 other people were killed, greater than 60% of them minors and girls.

The Israeli army’s announcement it was once “expanding” flooring operations within the territory signaled it was once shifting nearer to an all-out invasion of Gaza, the place it has vowed to weigh down the ruling Hamas militant team after its bloody incursion in southern Israel 3 weeks in the past. More than 1,400 other people had been slain in Israel all over the assault, consistent with the Israeli executive, and at least 229 hostages had been taken into Gaza.

The U.N. General Assembly authorized a nonbinding solution calling for a “humanitarian truce” in Gaza resulting in a cessation of hostilities. It was once the primary U.N. reaction to Hamas’ wonder Oct. 7 assaults and Israel’s ongoing army reaction.