About 100 people were arrested as large groups of protesters gathered in Midtown Manhattan on Thursday to demonstrate against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel’s appearance at the United Nations General Assembly, according to the Police Department.
“We’re here not just to oppose Netanyahu but to say stop arming Israel and the genocide,” Stefanie Fox, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, a progressive group, said in an interview. “We demand an end to the impunity and complicity right here.”
Mr. Netanyahu is the subject of an international arrest warrant, issued by the International Criminal Court in 2024 after it accused him of war crimes in Gaza. Under his leadership, Israel has also been accused of committing genocide in Gaza by a United Nations commission, as well as international and Israeli human rights groups.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani ran for election last year on a promise to have the police execute that criminal court warrant the next time Mr. Netanyahu visited the city, but he backed away from that pledge in July after the city’s Law Department told him that the city did not have the authority to make such an arrest.
But Mr. Mamdani has all but encouraged New Yorkers to protest Mr. Netanyahu’s visit, saying that, “One of the bedrocks of our city is protest.”
The arrests occurred when Jewish Voice for Peace, a progressive ally of the mayor, led roughly 250 people in a sit-in at the intersection of 39th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan, where protesters chanted and clanked cowbells while members of a smaller group of demonstrators were arrested after blocking the street.
Elsewhere, the Palestinian Youth Movement of New York and New York City Workers for Palestine organized a demonstration that led well over 1,000 people through Midtown during rush hour, filling the streets with clapping and echoing chants of “Netanyahu you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!”
Several of Mr. Mamdani’s political allies were among those who were arrested at that demonstration, including City Councilman Chi Ossé and Darializa Avila Chevalier, the Democratic nominee for a House seat in a deep blue district in Manhattan and the Bronx.
Several celebrities known for their pro-Palestinian activism, including the actresses Susan Sarandon and Hannah Einbinder, were arrested as well.
Ms. Avila Chevalier, a longtime pro-Palestinian activist, was criticized during her Democratic primary campaign for having participated in an anti-Israel demonstration the day after the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023. She said she participated on Thursday because “I think human dignity is more important than any political calculus.”
“The deep irony is the person with the arrest warrant for crimes against humanity is not the one that will be facing arrest today,” she added.
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