A large group of anti-Israel demonstrators swarmed Trump Tower on Thursday to protest the arrest of Columbia rally organizer Mahmoud Khalil, only to be swiftly detained themselves. Approximately 150 protesters from the Palestinian support group “Jewish Voice for Peace” gathered around noon in a publicly accessible downstairs atrium outside the Trump Grill restaurant, wearing red shirts that read “Jews Say Stop Arming Israel.”
NYPD officers arrived around 12:30 p.m., arresting 98 demonstrators, restraining them with zip ties, and loading them onto buses for transport to jail. “Those arrests are for trespassing, obstructing government administration, and resisting arrest by virtue of us having to carry some of the people out of the escalator, which you saw,” said NYPD Chief of Department John Chell.
“We gave warnings on our pager system and once we did that warning three times, the NYPD with its professionalism, as you saw, went in and made the arrests, there were no injuries. There were no incidents. There was no damaged property,” he added. According to Chell and a livestream of the protest, the group initially entered the public plaza in plain civilian attire, only to later unveil red shirts bearing the message “Jews Say Stop Arming Israel” and “Not In My Name.” Chell said: “They’re well-known to do this.”
The group waved signs demanding, “Fight Nazis not students,” “No Muslim Ban Ever,” and “Jews for Palestinian Freedom.” A protester said on the group’s live X feed: “We are saying if you come for one of us, you face us all.” While the protesters congregated in a public area, it is only “open to the public to a point,” Chell said, per the New York Post.
“Once Trump security deems it to be a problem for them, then they become the complainant,” the chief said. “We get permission from them, we give the warnings. As you know, some people left and some people stayed on the bottom floor, and we made the arrests.” Protesters were loaded onto MTA buses and transported to the mass arrest processing center at One Police Plaza. Later in the afternoon, two buses were seen arriving at police headquarters, The Post reported.
Before the rally was broken up, a protester on the group’s X feed could also be heard laying out the group’s demands to “free Mahmoud and free Palestine.” “As Jews, we refuse to be the scapegoats of fascism,” she said. “We aren’t leaving and we call on all people of consciousness to join us and refuse to comply with Trump’s regime’s attacks.” The protester added: “Colleges and universities must stop complying in advance. Columbia and every other university must start taking active measures to protect their students. We call for all universities to protect freedom of speech, collective protest and to defend their students.”
