On Thursday morning, the police arrested dozens of Gaza pro-ceasefire protesters after blocking the San Francisco Bay Bridge during their demonstration.
The protesters blocked the westbound traffic on the bridge, a commuter route into the city that accommodates 260,000 vehicles daily.
Police Arrested Gaza Pro-Ceasefire Protesters
According to NBC Bay Area, law enforcement, along with the California Highway Patrol and the police, cleared the bridge and arrested at least 50 protesters. The authorities also sent in tow trucks to remove the protesters' vehicles.
The local emergency services reported the blockage during morning rush hour on the bridge that connects Oakland and other East Bay cities to San Francisco.
The Palestinian Youth Movement and the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC Bay Area) organized the Thursday demonstration.
Two hundred people attended the protest, and video footage showed protesters had formed a human chain between vehicles. They sat on the bridge, and others positioned themselves under white sheets as part of a "die-in" near a colossal banner to encourage Biden to order a ceasefire immediately.
The large banner also read "Stop the genocide" and called for the US military to stop backing Israel. The media reported that the police wearing riot gear crossed the bridge with sheriff's deputies, leading a line of handcuffed protesters to the buses captured in video footage. While leaked images showed protesters zip-tied on the bridge.
The California Transportation Department said that the westbound part of the bridge remained closed, and later on, westbound lanes reopened at 11:45 a.m. However, the department advised the residents to use the public transit.
"I will say that we were not caught off guard. This was something that we were anticipating happening. We were here within a couple of minutes, but they were planned, they worked together, they brought their vehicles to a stop, and they got that accomplished within seconds," California Highway Patrol Chief Ezery Beauchamp said.
Beauchamp added that the protesters could protest as part of their First Amendment rights but warned not to protest on the Bay Bridge.
The San Francisco Chronicle said that the highway patrol refused to further comment about the protest but assured that they would do their best to press all the charges they could against the protesters. Furthermore, a department spokesperson noted that 20 more people were not yet arrested.
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Continuous Protest for Israel-Hamas War
San Francisco hosted the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, and the city has witnessed various demonstrations in response to the forum from activists protesting about corporate profits, environmental abuses, and the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The protests extended across the US as the death toll from the Israel-Hamas continued to rise. Countries such as Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington, and New York have been organizing mass protests for the past few days, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
In October, the Hamas attack already killed 1,200 people, as the military launched a ground invasion and an intense bombing in Gaza. More than 11,200 Palestinians were killed in recent weeks, two-thirds of them women and children, as reported by Gaza's health ministry.
