Several demonstrators were arrested in the early hours of Friday outside the hotel where the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is staying in New York ahead of his scheduled speech on Friday morning at the United Nations general assembly.
About two dozen people protested in a small but noisy gathering near Netanyahu’s hotel in the Lenox Hill neighborhood on the east side of Manhattan, not far from the UN building.
The demonstration after midnight appeared aimed at disrupting the Middle East leader’s sleep as protesters carrying Palestinian flags and signs saying “genocide” and other statements banged drums, chanted and yelled “baby killer”, “free Palestine” and “fuck Israel” in the street, according to footage posted to social media.
Police officers ordered and herded them onto the sidewalk and made several arrests although overall the New York police department appeared to stand by and the protest was non-violent.
The demonstration came as Netanyahu’s address was expected to be defiant over Israel’s latest military offensive in Gaza and comes as several high-profile countries have in the last week formally recognized Palestine as an independent state.
The largely symbolic but significant shift in international policy is designed to put fresh pressure on Israel to end the war in Gaza and come back to the negotiating table. At least 65,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and 167,000 injured by Israel’s attacks on the region in the wake of the deadly attack on southern Israel led by Hamas, which governs the Gaza strip, on 7 October 2023, with the Islamist militant group still holding hostages snatched in the attack.
The United Kingdom recognized Palestine earlier this week with an announcement by the country’s prime minister, Keir Starmer.
“The hope of a two-state solution is fading but we cannot let that light go out … Today, to revive the hope of peace and a two-state solution, I state clearly, as prime minister of this great country, that the UK formally recognizes the state of Palestine,” he said.
Netanyahu had quickly denounced the UK’s announcement, calling it absurd and a “reward for terrorism”.
Canada, Australia, France and Portugal have also very recently made similar public recognitions of a Palestinian state.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has advocated against annexation by Israel of the West Bank, although the US would fully be expected to use its security council veto against the recognition of Palestine in any formal UN vote.
