NEW YORK (AP) — Pro-Palestinian protesters briefly blocked roads leading to airports in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday, causing some travelers to walk to avoid the traffic jam.
As U.S. airlines cope with the holiday travel frenzy, protests paralyzed traffic outside New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport.
In New York, activists linked arms and held signs demanding an end to the war between Israel and Hamas and expanded rights for Palestinians. The demonstration completely stopped traffic on the expressway leading to the airport for about 20 minutes.
A video posted on social media showed passengers, some of them with luggage, getting out of the vehicles and jumping over barriers to access the central part of the highway. A woman could be heard saying that she “was sorry for what is happening in another country,” but that she had to go to work, using foul language.
Twenty-six people were detained on the highway, said Steve Burns, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The agency also sent two buses to “provide transportation to travelers who were involved in the traffic jam to allow them to get to the airport safely,” Burns said.
Around the same time that the protest was taking place in New York, a group of pro-Palestinian protesters blocked passage on a major road leading to the Los Angeles Airport, where they colored traffic cones, trash cans, scooters and other objects on the streets. lanes, according to images recorded by a news helicopter.
In a statement, the Los Angeles Police Department accused protesters of knocking a police officer to the ground and “attacking uninvolved bystanders in their vehicles,” without providing further details about either incident.
The group appeared to flee when police arrived, although the Los Angeles Police Department said traffic around the airport was still disrupted about two hours after the demonstration was declared illegal.
Since war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7, protests have broken out almost every night in cities across the United States. In New York, organizers have responded to the rising death toll in Gaza with an escalation of actions aimed at disrupting some of the city’s best-known events, such as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and the annual tree lighting ceremony. at Rockefeller Center.
Associated Press writer John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
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2023-12-27 21:24:01
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