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Hundreds gather in Bryant Park following pro-Palestinian NYC high school walkout
(New York Jewish Week) – Hundreds of high school students and adults gathered near Bryant Park, heeding the call of a coalition of pro-Palestinian groups for New York City high school students to stage a walkout in protest of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza.
The crowd chanted “Intifada,” called for a ceasefire, accused Israel of genocide and praised Palestinian “resistance.” Actress Susan Sarandon, a longtime critic of Israel, made an unannounced appearance.
Organizers had released a detailed guide to help students schedule, recruit for, organize and gain administrator consent for the walkout, but the majority of the crowd appeared to be older than school age. One speaker told the audience that “over 150” students had walked out of class, out of the hundreds of thousands of high schoolers in the city. Some young people joined the event later in the day, after schools let out.
The crowd chanted, “From the river to the sea,” “Israel is a racist state,” and “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” from the steps of the New York Public Library. Attendees carried signs that said, “Resistance against occupation is a human right,” and “Free all Palestinian political prisoners.”
Activists posted stickers around the protest saying, “Stop the Holocaust in Gaza” and warning “Zionist donors” against interfering in colleges.
The war began on Oct. 7 when Hamas invaded Israel, killing 1,400 and taking more than 200 people hostage. Israel has since conducted heavy airstrikes in Gaza and launched a ground invasion with the aim of deposing the terror group. According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, more than 10,000 people have been killed, though it isn’t clear how many are civilians and how many were killed by misfired Palestinian rockets.
Sarandon told the crowd, “So many people do not understand the context in which this Oct. 7 assault happened. They don’t understand the history of what has been happening to the Palestinian people.”
She added, “It’s time to have an open heart. It’s time to be strong and it’s time that Palestine be free.”
Speakers at the rally decried civilian fatalities in Gaza and framed the war as the focal point of a global struggle against profit-seeking Western imperialism, raising the topics of U.S. labor unions, homelessness in New York City, U.S. taxes and the policies of New York investment firms.
“The situation in Gaza today is unfathomable,” a speaker from the Palestinian Youth Movement, one of the organizers, told the crowd. “Every day we hear from our people in Gaza, ‘Today was the worst day so far.’
“From the river to the sea, the struggle for Palestinian liberation only grows stronger and stronger in the face of the bombs and bullets of the oppressive Zionist and imperialist world,” said the speaker, who did not share her name. “The expansionist genocidal nature of the Zionist settler colony could not be more blatant.”
A high schooler told the crowd, “We are showing the people of Gaza that they are being listened to.”
“We are the resistance fighters of the West,” the student said. “And we will not be quiet until Palestine is free.”
The groups organizing the protest demanded an immediate ceasefire and “an end to U.S. support for genocide” in materials addressed to students, teachers and parents released ahead of the rally.
The event, called a “Day of Action,” was sponsored by a number of pro-Palestinian and educators’ groups, including the Palestinian Youth Movement, Teachers Unite and the Movement of Rank and File Educators, the progressive caucus within the city teachers union.
The Community Education Council in District 14 in Brooklyn, an elected entity that is part of the city’s school governance structure, also signed onto the rally. The council and several other organizers did not respond to requests for comment.
The group’s “toolkit” included a guide for calling members of Congress, plans for the student walkout, instructions for educators, drafts for parent-teacher association anti-Israel resolutions, and talking points echoing the messages delivered at the rally.
The toolkit suggested educators support student protesters by canceling tests or deadlines, and that students should protest inside school buildings if they are not comfortable leaving campus.
Educational materials from organizers appeared to justify the Oct. 7 attacks, saying, “Palestinians tore down the cement walls caging them in the Gaza Strip.”
The talking points included the claim that Israel had killed 900 people in a hospital bombing last month, which has been debunked by a wide range of assessments by intelligence agencies and publications, and that it was deliberately killing civilians who were fleeing the fighting, which Israel strenuously denies. Israel has opened up protected corridors for civilians to evacuate and has instituted humanitarian pauses to provide for civilian needs.
Chancellor David Banks on Wednesday warned educators against bringing politics into the classroom. In an email the Department of Education shared with the New York Jewish Week, he said he had planned to send that message before the announcement of the walkout.
“School leaders, teachers, and other school staff should not express their personal views about political matters during the school day,” the email said. “Our job as educators is to expose our students to objective facts and multiple perspectives, allowing them to make their own judgments and grow as independent and critical thinkers.”
Late last month, Banks expressed alarm about “hateful rhetoric at educational institutions” surrounding the war. Days after the Hamas attack, Banks condemned the “horrific acts of violence” and said the school system would provide resources to facilitate discussion about the conflict.
New York City Department of Education regulations stipulate that “School buildings are not public forums for purposes of community or political expression.” Regulations also say that employees cannot engage in political activities during working hours.
School protests against gun violence in recent years, particularly following the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, offered a recent precedent for staging protests at schools. Any disciplinary measures for illegal activity would need to be consistent, and past disciplinary measures have been moderate, said David Bloomfield, a professor of education, leadership, law and policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.
“If the school administration didn’t punish teachers for participating in the anti-gun violence rallies, it can’t turn around and be more stringent against a pro-Palestinian demonstration,” he said.
Bloomfield said it was legal for educators to encourage the day of action, but some of its activities may not be legal during work hours. Students and faculty, he said, “need to be careful that their speech doesn’t drift into hate or threats of violence.” The participation of the Community Education Council was also legal, he said.
Faculty needed to focus on keeping students safe during the walkout, he said, adding that teachers who actively protested during school hours may be subject to disciplinary measures. It wasn’t clear if any public school educators participated in the protest.
Rabbi Yossi Schwartz, the director of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Student Union in New York, a youth group, said the organization has been grappling with antisemitism in high schools since Oct. 7. The group runs clubs meant to bolster Jewish identity and connections to Israel in around 30 public schools in New York City and Long Island, along with one location in Westchester.
“I think the world out there knew that it was going on in colleges but the fact that it’s even in high schools, I think is shocking,” Schwartz said, adding that the group had tallied five antisemitic incidents in New York City public schools in the past week.
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The post Hundreds gather in Bryant Park following pro-Palestinian NYC high school walkout appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says
A closed Israeli military gate stands near Ramallah in the West Bank, February 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Israel will not allow a planned meeting in the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah, in the West Bank, to go ahead, an Israeli official said on Saturday, after Arab ministers planning to attend were stopped from coming.
The move, days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government announced one of the largest expansions of settlements in the West Bank in years, underlined escalating tensions over the issue of international recognition of a future Palestinian state.
Saturday’s meeting comes ahead of an international conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, that is due to be held in New York on June 17-20 to discuss the issue of Palestinian statehood, which Israel fiercely opposes.
The delegation of senior Arab officials due to visit Ramallah – including the Jordanian, Egyptian, Saudi Arabian and Bahraini foreign ministers – postponed the visit after “Israel’s obstruction of it,” Jordan’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the block was “a clear breach of Israel’s obligations as an occupying force.”
The ministers required Israeli consent to travel to the West Bank from Jordan.
An Israeli official said the ministers intended to take part in “a provocative meeting” to discuss promoting the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“Such a state would undoubtedly become a terrorist state in the heart of the land of Israel,” the official said. “Israel will not cooperate with such moves aimed at harming it and its security.”
A Saudi source told Reuters that Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud had delayed a planned trip to the West Bank.
Israel has come under increasing pressure from the United Nations and European countries which favour a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, under which an independent Palestinian state would exist alongside Israel.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that recognizing a Palestinian state was not only a “moral duty but a political necessity.”
Palestinians want the West Bank territory, which was seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as the core of a future state along with Gaza and East Jerusalem.
But the area is now criss-crossed with settlements that have squeezed some 3 million Palestinians into pockets increasingly cut off from each other though a network of military checkpoints.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the announcement this week of 22 new settlements in the West Bank was an “historic moment” for settlements and “a clear message to Macron.” He said recognition of a Palestinian state would be “thrown into the dustbin of history.”
The post Israel Blocks Ramallah Meeting with Arab Ministers, Israeli Official Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Armed men hijacked dozens of aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip overnight and hundreds of desperate Palestinians joined in to take supplies, local aid groups said on Saturday as officials waited for Hamas to respond to the latest ceasefire proposals.
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close but Hamas has said it is still studying the latest proposals from his special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. The White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the proposals.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
On Saturday, the Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the increasingly desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war began 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
At the same time, a separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on the social media platform X.
NO BREAD IN WEEKS
The World Food Program said it brought 77 trucks carrying flour into Gaza overnight and early on Saturday and all of them were stopped on the way, with food taken by hungry people.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” it said in a statement.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Overnight on Saturday, he said trucks had been stopped by armed groups near Khan Younis as they were headed towards a World Food Programme warehouse in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza and hundreds of desperate people had carried off supplies.
“We could understand that some are driven by hunger and starvation, some may not have eaten bread in several weeks, but we can’t understand armed looting, and it is not acceptable at all,” he said.
Israel says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
The post Gaza Aid Supplies Hit by Looting as Hamas Ceasefire Response Awaited first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Hamas said on Saturday it was seeking amendments to a US-backed proposal for a temporary ceasefire with Israel in Gaza, but President Donald Trump’s envoy rejected the group’s response as “totally unacceptable.”
The Palestinian terrorist group said it was willing to release 10 living hostages and hand over the bodies of 18 dead in exchange for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. But Hamas reiterated demands for an end to the war and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, conditions Israel has rejected.
A Hamas official described the group’s response to the proposals from Trump’s special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as “positive” but said it was seeking some amendments. The official did not elaborate on the changes being sought by the group.
“This response aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and to ensure the flow of humanitarian aid to our people in the Strip,” Hamas said in a statement.
The proposals would see a 60-day truce and the exchange of 28 of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza for more than 1,200 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, along with the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.
A Palestinian official familiar with the talks told Reuters that among amendments Hamas is seeking is the release of the hostages in three phases over the 60-day truce and more aid distribution in different areas. Hamas also wants guarantees the deal will lead to a permanent ceasefire, the official said.
There was no immediate response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to the Hamas statement.
Israel has previously rejected Hamas’ conditions, instead demanding the complete disarmament of the group and its dismantling as a military and governing force, along with the return of all 58 remaining hostages.
Trump said on Friday he believed a ceasefire agreement was close after the latest proposals, and the White House said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to the terms.
Saying he had received Hamas’ response, Witkoff wrote in a posting on X: “It is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward. Hamas should accept the framework proposal we put forward as the basis for proximity talks, which we can begin immediately this coming week.”
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had killed Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza chief on May 13, confirming what Netanyahu said earlier this week.
Sinwar, the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the group’s deceased leader and mastermind of the October 2023 attack on Israel, was the target of an Israeli strike on a hospital in southern Gaza. Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death.
The Israeli military, which relaunched its air and ground campaign in March following a two-month truce, said on Saturday it was continuing to hit targets in Gaza, including sniper posts and had killed what it said was the head of a Hamas weapons manufacturing site.
The campaign has cleared large areas along the boundaries of the Gaza Strip, squeezing the population of more than 2 million into an ever narrower section along the coast and around the southern city of Khan Younis.
Israel imposed a blockade on all supplies entering the enclave at the beginning of March in an effort to weaken Hamas and has found itself under increasing pressure from an international community shocked by the desperate humanitarian situation the blockade has created.
On Saturday, aid groups said dozens of World Food Program trucks carrying flour to Gaza bakeries had been hijacked by armed groups and subsequently looted by people desperate for food after weeks of mounting hunger.
“After nearly 80 days of a total blockade, communities are starving and they are no longer willing to watch food pass them by,” the WFP said in a statement.
‘A MOCKERY’
The incident was the latest in a series that has underscored the shaky security situation hampering the delivery of aid into Gaza, following the easing of a weeks-long Israeli blockade earlier this month.
The United Nations said on Friday the situation in Gaza is the worst since the start of the war 19 months ago, with the entire population facing the risk of famine despite a resumption of limited aid deliveries earlier this month.
“The aid that’s being sent now makes a mockery of the mass tragedy unfolding under our watch,” Philippe Lazzarini, head of the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinians, said in a message on X.
Israel has been allowing a limited number of trucks from the World Food Program and other international groups to bring flour to bakeries in Gaza but deliveries have been hampered by repeated incidents of looting.
A separate system, run by a US-backed group called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has been delivering meals and food packages at three designated distribution sites.
However, aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF, which they say is not neutral, and say the amount of aid allowed in falls far short of the needs of a population at risk of famine.
Amjad Al-Shawa, head of an umbrella group representing Palestinian aid groups, said the dire situation was being exploited by armed groups which were attacking some of the aid convoys.
He said hundreds more trucks were needed and accused Israel of a “systematic policy of starvation.”
Israel denies operating a policy of starvation and says it is facilitating aid deliveries, pointing to its endorsement of the new GHF distribution centers and its consent for other aid trucks to enter Gaza.
Instead it accuses Hamas of stealing supplies intended for civilians and using them to entrench its hold on Gaza, which it had been running since 2007.
Hamas denies looting supplies and has executed a number of suspected looters.
The post Hamas Seeks Changes in US Gaza Proposal; Witkoff Calls Response ‘Unacceptable’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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