NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – Thousands of Palestinian supporters gathered in Brooklyn Saturday to call for a ceasefire in Gaza as the Israel-Hamas war continues, following Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attack in southern Israel.
There were over 9,000 protestors in Brooklyn yesterday, according to the NYPD, and a number of the demonstrators marched on the Brooklyn Bridge en masse following a large-scale rally in the borough.
Protestors flooded the bridge around 5:30 p.m., forcing officials to shut it down for two hours, police said.
A pro-Palestinian organization called Within Our Lifetime encouraged people to “Flood Brooklyn for Gaza” on Saturday at 3 p.m., promoting a protest at 200 Eastern Parkway, or the Brooklyn Museum, in Crown Heights.
1010 WINS spoke with the founder and chair of Within Our Lifetime who explained the message the protest is meant to send to officials.
“These politicians don’t speak for New York. We speak for ourselves and we stand in support of Palestine and demand an end to the genocide, an end to the siege and blockade of Gaza and freedom for Palestine now,” she said.
The protest is being held just down the road from the Jewish Hasidic Lubavitcher Headquarters in a neighborhood with a large Jewish population.
Leaders in the Jewish community told 1010 WINS that they would not be intimidated, but that they do see a rally in their neighborhood on the Sabbath as an insult.
1010 WINS spoke with protestors on Saturday who explained the message they want people to understand from their demonstration.
“We are here for one purpose and one purpose only, and it is to fight for the liberation of the Palestinian people by any means necessary,” one protestor told 1010 WINS.
Saturday’s protest comes not even 24 hours after Grand Central was shut down by a rally organized by Jewish Voice for Peace where thousands of Jewish and Palestinian protestors called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
More than 200 protestors were arrested Friday for disorderly conduct or similar charges, police said. A vast majority will receive summonses.
The protest disrupted train lines and the MTA was forced to temporarily shut down the station, posting “Grand Central Terminal is closed until further notice due to a protest” on their website and urging commuters to take alternative travel routes.
“A ceasefire provides the immediate solutions to all of this. I would never be as naïve to say that a ceasefire is the long-lasting answer to this issue, but it is the immediate issue,” New York Assemblymember Zorhan Mamdani, who was supporting the rally, told 1010 WINS.
Demonstrators wore shirts that said “Ceasefire now” and hung banners from railings that read “Mourn the dead, and fight like hell for the living.”