By Deutsche Welle
Apr 16, 2024, 09:23 AM EDT
Pro-Palestinian protesters blocked the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, western United States, on Monday, leaving a stretch packed with traffic in one direction while lanes in the other direction were empty, aerial images showed.
The protest was part of a coordinated day of direct action carried out in several cities around the world to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza.
The protesters who stopped traffic carried a banner that read “Stop the world for Gaza.”
The protest group A15 Action announced a “blockade in several cities (…) in solidarity with Palestine.” Its website indicated that actions were planned as far away as Mexico City, Ho Chi Minh City, Sydney, Athens, New York and Johannesburg.
“In each city, we will identify and block the main choke points of the economy, focusing on places of production and circulation with the aim of causing the greatest economic impact,” the group stated on its portal.
Early Monday, a protest blocked a highway heading to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
“Stop the siege of Gaza”
Protesters also blocked access to an aerospace plant in Connecticut (northeast) and to a highway in Oregon (northwest).
In Los Angeles (southwest), several hundred people marched through the city center, carrying a banner that read “Stop the siege of Gaza, stop US funding of Israel.”
Monday’s protest on the Golden Gate Bridge came as the Middle East faces one of its most difficult times in six months.after Iran launched a large-scale airstrike against Israel over the weekend.
The attack was largely repelled by Israel, with help from allies such as the United States and Britain.
Israel launched an offensive on Gaza last October after suffering an unprecedented attack by militants from the Hamas terrorist group that caused the death of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.
Since then, more than 33,000 people, mostly women and children, have died in Gaza, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-ruled territory.
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