Gaza cease-fire protesters arrested after shutting down part of downtown Raleigh street
The 300 block of Fayetteville Street was reopened by police before 6:30 p.m. Thursday after demonstrators calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war had blocked the downtown roadway, the Raleigh Police Department said.
Police had asked drivers and pedestrians to find other ways around the area when dozens of people lay down in the street as part of the protest.
Some protesters were arrested, and one person was charged with assault on a police officer, according to ABC11, The News & Observer’s newsgathering partner.
Demonstrators gathered late Thursday afternoon to stage a “die-in” outside the Wake County courthouse in an ongoing effort to get U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross to support a cease-fire resolution in the war in Gaza.
”History will remember this moment, where Rep. Ross faced a choice between taking a stand to prevent the total ethnic cleansing of Gaza and calling for a cease-fire,” the Triangle branch of Jewish Voice for Peace said in a statement. “She must choose: ceasefire or genocide.”
The News & Observer reached out to Ross’s office for comment.
Jewish Voice for Peace has previously delivered letters to Ross and lobbied for her support
The war has claimed over 29,000 Palestinians’ lives, a majority of them women and children who were killed by Israeli strikes.
Israel has continued to bomb Gaza to fight the Hamas militant group in response to the Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel by Hamas that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took dozens more hostage.
