Pro-Palestinian demonstrators swarm on Capitol Hill, demand Gaza ceasefire as police arrest protesters

Sarah Rumpf-Whitten
Updated Wed, October 18, 2023

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators swarmed the Cannon Rotunda on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, with hundreds of protesters demanding a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Footage from inside the Cannon Office Building showed a large group chanting "Ceasefire Now!" and calling for Congress to demand the fighting stop in Israel. The protesters were spotted wearing black T-shirts reading, "Jews Say Ceasefire Now!"

Protesters were seen inside the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday afternoon.

The group Jewish Voice for Peace said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that "over 350" demonstrators," including two dozen rabbis, were inside the large rotunda while thousands of others protested outside.

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U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) said demonstrations are not allowed inside congressional buildings and worked to clear the crowd. In an X post, USCP warned the protesters to stop demonstrating and "when they did not comply we began arresting them."

U.S. Capitol Police said that they arrested 300 demonstrators who stormed a rotunda on Wednesday afternoon.

USCP told Fox News that approximately 300 demonstrators were arrested in the protest on Capitol Hill, including at least three who were charged with assault on a police officer during the demonstrations.

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USCP also confirmed to Fox News that demonstrators inside the Cannon Rotunda will be charged with illegally protesting inside a House office building.

At 6 p.m., authorities said that the rotunda is clear of illegal protesters and that USCP is processing the arrests.

Capitol Police say demonstrators inside the Cannon Rotunda will be charged with illegally protesting inside a House Office Building.

U.S. Capitol Police say that demonstrations are not allowed inside congressional buildings and are working to clear the crowd.

USCP also said more protesters are walking in the roadway around the House side of the Capitol Complex, and they have begun temporary rolling road closures for safety.

"A large group of protesters are walking in the roadway around the House side of the Capitol Complex," USCP wrote in an X post. "For safety reasons, we have temporary rolling road closures in effect."

The large group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested.

Massive march on the Cannon House Office Building in solidarity with Palestinians.

More than 30 protesters were arrested in front of the White House on Monday and over the weekend, thousands of pro-Palestinian activists took to the streets of the nation's capital to advocate for a cease-fire between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hamas militant group.

Fox News' Elizabeth Elkind and Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

Original article source: Pro-Palestinian demonstrators swarm on Capitol Hill, demand Gaza ceasefire as police arrest protesters



Pro-Palestinian protests in U.S. Capitol end in arrests
Suzanne Bates

DESERET NEWS
Wed, October 18, 2023 

Demonstrators, calling for a cease-fire in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, protest inside the Cannon House Office Building at the Capitol in Washington on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. | Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, Associated Press

More than 300 pro-Palestinian protesters were in the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, leading to several arrests by Capitol police officers.

A large group of demonstrators, who say they were with the groups Jewish Voice for Peace, and IfNotNow, gathered in the rotunda in the Cannon House Office Building where they staged a sit-in, according to multiple reports. Hundreds of other protesters gathered outside. They chanted “Cease-fire now.”

The Anti-Defamation League calls Jewish Voice for Peace a “radical anti-Israel activist group that advocates for a complete economic, cultural and academic boycott of the state of Israel.”

The House and Senate Sergeant-at-Arms sent a memo to congressional offices advising lawmakers to take underground tunnels and to remain inside during the protests, while bike-rack barriers were put up around the Cannon Building, according to the Washington Examiner.

Capitol police officers arrested several of the protesters Wednesday evening, including three who were arrested for assaulting an officer, according to a U.S. Capitol Police social media post. By 4 p.m. MDT, the Rotunda was cleared, they reported.

U.S. Capitol Police officers detain demonstrators protesting inside the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. | Jose Luis Magana, Associated Press

While some, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene called the demonstrators “insurrectionists,” most lawmakers seemed generally unruffled by the protests.

Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s communications director Billy Gribbin told the Deseret News the senator was busy with his usual work Wednesday.

“Sen. Lee stands with the victims of terrorism in Israel,” Gribbin said. “He spent the day crafting new legislation with his colleagues, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act with a speech at the Heritage Foundation, and working for the people of Utah.”

Thousands protest in Federal Plaza and at Israeli Consulate in support of Palestinians as conflict escalates

Caroline Kubzansky, Chicago Tribune
Wed, October 18, 2023 

Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Thousands of people demonstrated Wednesday in Chicago’s Federal Plaza and in front of the Israeli Consulate in support of Palestinians who are dying in the intensifying clash in the Middle East.

Wednesday’s gathering was the third protest in a week organized by Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine in support of the Palestinian cause. The demonstrations have drawn thousands to the Loop to condemn mounting fatalities in the war between Israel and Hamas, a terrorist group, and call for Palestinian sovereignty.

On Tuesday, the Gaza Health Ministry said more than 500 died at a Gaza City hospital in a strike that Israel blamed on Hamas misfiring a rocket while Hamas attributed the blast to the Israelis.

Before the blast, about 2,800 Palestinians had been reported killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza. An additional 1,200 people are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said. An Oct. 7 attack by Hamas left about 1,400 Israelis dead and almost 200 taken hostage.

One million people have been displaced in about 10 days, according to the United Nations.

Tammy Abughnaim, 32, stood near Alexander Calder’s Flamingo sculpture in her work scrubs. Abughnaim, a doctor, attended the rally to condemn Tuesday’s deaths at the hospital. Her sign read “hospitals are not targets.”

“Life is sacred, and as a physician I spend all of my time trying to save lives,” she said. “There has to be a limit to what you’re able to condone.”

Abughnaim said she had been planning to travel to Gaza to assist with medical training through the nonprofit MedGlobal before violence broke out. “We had to scrap that trip,” she said. “So this is intensely personal to me right now.”

Another woman who asked to only be identified by her first name, Raya, attended the rally with her mother and a collection of signs. One of them read “stop murdering children.”

“You have dead children, orphaned children and parents without children anymore (in Gaza),” she said, her voice catching. “I’m here for the children.”

Raya, 30 and her mother Rena, 60, said they have family in Gaza. “Every time we call them they say so far, we are still alive,” Rena said.

Lynn Pollack, 71, and Lynne Kavin, 56, stood together with a sign that said “Jews say stop genocide of Palestinians.” Both organize with the activist organization Jewish Voice for Peace, which identifies itself as anti-Zionist and has called for a cease-fire in the Middle East.

Pollack and Kavin said they felt it was important to attend the rally because of the “huge role” American Jews have in the conflict.

“It’s American Jews who are enabling this to go on,” Pollack said. “We have to show the world that Israel doesn’t represent every Jew; the Israeli government doesn’t speak for us.”

The pair had attended the two previous protests by Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine, and they plan to continue attending “until it stops,” Pollack said.

Rally organizers and guest speakers took turns at the microphone to call for an end to U.S. military aid to the Israeli government and mourn the dead before the crowd set off toward the Israeli consulate.

The crowd spanned three blocks and marched north on Dearborn before turning onto Madison, eventually reaching the Israeli Consulate at 500 W. Madison St.

As the crowd screamed in front of the Accenture Tower, three men and four women paused at Madison and Canal streets to pray. Droves of Palestinian flags fluttered behind the prayer groups as diners in a nearby restaurant looked on.

As night fell and the protest continued in front of the consulate, other groups took turns praying on the sidewalk. Their chants mingled with the beating drums, clapping and demonstrators’ shouts of “from the river, to the sea, Palestine will be free.”