Nearly 300 people were arrested out of thousands of demonstrators who took part in a Jewish-led protest on Wednesday on Capitol Hill to demand a cease-fire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.
Hundreds of demonstrators also staged a sit-in at the Capitol’s Cannon House Office Building and chanted, “Cease-fire now!”
Jewish Voice for Peace, which organised the efforts, said dozens of rabbis were among the protesters. The activist group is also calling for humanitarian assistance to be allowed to enter the embattled Gaza Strip amid the war.
“We warned the protestors to stop demonstrating and when they did not comply we began arresting them,” US Capitol Police posted on X on Wednesday.
The public is allowed to enter the Cannon House Office Building, as well as other House and Senate buildings, but demonstrations are prohibited inside, according to NBC4 Washington.
While the number of those arrested is likely to change as police process all the arrests, a Capitol Police spokesperson told the outlet that “close to 300” demonstrators had been arrested around 6pm local time on Wednesday. An organiser told the outlet that somewhere between 300 and 400 people were demonstrating inside the building.
So far, at least three people have been charged with assault on a police officer, NBC4 also reported.
A spokesperson for the Capitol Police told HuffPost earlier that those arrested “will be ticketed and released.” At that time, roughly 100 people had been arrested.
Meanwhile, some demonstrators were seen interrupting a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
The protests follow more than a week of conflict between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza. On October 7, an attack by Hamas killed more than a thousand people in Israel. In response, Israel has slain thousands in Gaza and ordered a “complete siege” of the enclave, prompting human rights experts to warn of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian population. Nearly half of the people in Gaza are children.
Author and activist Naomi Klein, who was among those protesting in Washington, said in a statement that the bloodshed must end.
“Since we were children, so many of us have told ourselves that we would not stand by if we were ever witnesses to genocidal violence,” Klein said. “We told ourselves that we would raise our voices. We told ourselves we would put our bodies on the line. We pledged that such horrors would never again happen on our watch.”
She added: “The ‘never again’ of our lifetimes is underway in Gaza right now. And we refuse to stand by and watch.”
On Monday, 49 protesters were arrested at the White House complex amid a Jewish Voice for Peace demonstration calling on US President Joe Biden to push for a cease-fire.
As the deadly conflict continues in the Middle East, fears have risen of harassment and attacks targeting Muslims and Jews in the US. On Monday, the Justice Department announced that it would open a hate crime investigation after a white landlord in Illinois was accused of fatally stabbing his 6-year-old Palestinian American tenant.
Taiyler S. Mitchell contributed reporting.