Pro-Palestine Protestors Blocks Bay Bridge Demanding Ceasefire (image- twitter/c_resistance)
Pro-Palestine protestors demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza blocked off traffic on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for hours on Thursday morning. According to the videos posted on social media, the protestors were seen chanting “Ceasefire-now” and others holding larger banners that read, “No military aid to Palestine”.
The protest comes as President Joe Biden and other world leaders met for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (ASPEC) meeting in San Francisco. The activists focused on capturing the attention of Joe Biden to call for ceasefire.
The protestors reached the site by driving in their own cars and blocked all the lanes. Few of them covered themselves in shrouds and laid down on the lanes to represent the dead bodies of the innocent civilians in Gaza. The blockade which began at 7:42 am, stretched the mile-long traffic jams till the East Bay.
BREAKING PROTESTERS SHUT DOWN BAY BRIDGE
Thursday morning starting around 8am – a coalition of organizers currently holding down the Bay Bridge saying –#FreePalestine & NO TO APEC! pic.twitter.com/AaW55yfgdg
— RootsAction (@Roots_Action) November 16, 2023
Although all lanes weren’t blocked on the eastbound lanes, traffic in both directions was affected, said California Highway Patrol Officer Art Montiel, reports Los Angeles Times.
All the westbound lanes could only be opened by noon. As per the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, about 3.7 million cars cross the Bay Bridge on a monthly basis.
The protest was not organized by a single organization and one of the members called it a “dispersed, decentralized effort”. And he also said, “We’re here to send a strong message that there will be no business as usual as long as the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza continues, and as long as the United States continues to blindly support this genocide through political cover and direct military funding.”
The protest has not only disrupted the thousands of commutators on the bridge but has also affected the transportation of major organs in and out of UC San Francisco hospitals.
The protest on the Bay of Bridges was just the latest high-profile demonstration demanding cease fire in Gaza. One Wednesday evening, the Jews activists’ group organised rally that shut down the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland avenue on Wednesday. Similarly, the protest in Oakland led to mass arrests for refusing to leave the Ronald V.Dellums Federal Building and US Courthouse. Protest rallies are seen being erupted in several parts of the world demanding an immediate stop to the atrocities happening in the besieged enclave of Gaza.
