Thousands protest near Rockefeller Center tree lighting ceremony
NEW YORK — Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered Wednesday night outside the News Corp. Building two blocks from Rockefeller Center, where a separate crowd had gathered for the annual tree lighting ceremony.
Several protesters were arrested at the demonstration. They chanted “free, free Palestine” as they waved Palestinian flags and held signs, some reading “call it what it is, genocide.”
At least one person held up a sign of a swastika, with arrows pointing to the words “Israeli Military,” an image from the protest showed.
Meanwhile, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, an 80-foot Norway spruce decorated with 50,000 LED lights and a 900-pound Swarovski star, was lit as the nearby protest dwindled.
A few hundred protesters were left when a face-off with police occurred near West 47th Street and Avenue of the Americas.
Multiple people were pepper sprayed by police and arrested in the melee. It was not immediately clear how many people were cuffed in the protest, a police spokesperson said.
Still, many tree-lighting spectators inside the iconic plaza were not aware of the nearby tumult.
“It was amazing, it was incredible,” said Sofia Rauh, 19, who traveled to the city from Boca Raton, Florida, with her family. “We waited for hours but it was worth it."
Asked about the demonstration, she said, “What protests? I didn’t see any.”
The NYPD’s elite counterterrorism unit had been aware the protest was planned and prepared to use a “wide array of resources to protect the city based on events unfolding here and around the world,” a department spokesman said.
“You have to … be able to allow people to have their First Amendment rights, but also to not allow them to disrupt the event that’s taking place,” former NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan told NBC New York on Wednesday evening.
Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, the United States has been on alert with a heightened risk of terrorism and extremist activity.
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