On Thursday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in New York City to address the United Nations General Assembly, widespread demonstrations across the city culminated in dozens of arrests of protesters demanding he be held accountable for alleged war crimes in Gaza and the broader Middle East.
Organized by coalitions including Jewish Voice for Peace and the Palestinian Youth Movement, thousands of demonstrators gathered outside UN headquarters to march against Netanyahu’s presence in the city, with many condemning Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and the threat of expanded conflict to Lebanon and Iran. What started as a mass demonstration shifted to direct action when a group of protesters held a sit-in that blocked a primary arterial road leading to the UN complex, prompting NYPD officers to move in and make arrests.
The list of detained demonstrators includes high-profile public figures: Academy Award-winning actor Susan Sarandon, comedian Hannah Einbinder, and former US Army intelligence analyst and whistleblower Chelsea Manning were all taken into custody. Video of Einbinder, handcuffed and being led away by police, circulated widely on social media, where she can be heard chanting, “Netanyahu out of New York, no bombs on Lebanon, no bombs on Iran, stop the genocide.”
Multiple sitting and candidate elected officials were also among those arrested. New York City Council members Alexa Avilés, Linda Sarsour, Jennifer Gutiérrez, Chi Ossé, Darializa Avila-Chevalier, and New York State Senate candidate Aber Kawas were all detained during the action. In remarks to Middle East Eye (MEE) hours after her release, Kawas reaffirmed her commitment to the protest, saying that more elected leaders must condemn what she called the presence of a war criminal on New York soil.
“I was proud to be out in protest, to even face arrest… because I think we’re sending a message that we need more people to stand up for what is morally right in this moment,” Kawas told MEE.
Protesters wore matching emblazoned shirts reading “Fund people, not bombs” as they blocked traffic near the UN, echoing demands for an end to US military aid to Israel, a ceasefire in Gaza, and accountability for crimes against Palestinian civilians. The International Criminal Court (ICC), based in The Hague, Netherlands, issued an official arrest warrant for Netanyahu in November 2024, charging him with multiple war crimes including the use of starvation as a weapon of war, murder, persecution, and deliberate attacks on civilian populations, with allegations dating back to at least October 8, 2023.
Ibtehal, a leading Palestinian Youth Movement organizer in New York who was arrested alongside Kawas, told MEE the core demand of the demonstration was to challenge the international community’s failure to execute the ICC warrant.
“We were protesting the fact that a war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu, hasn’t been held to account, that the international community hasn’t arrested this war criminal and hasn’t enacted sanctions and an arms embargo for the crimes that he’s committed,” she said.
Much of the public criticism on the day was also directed at New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who made a campaign promise to use city law enforcement to arrest Netanyahu if he entered New York. Eight months after taking office, however, Mamdani announced in July that the city lacked the legal authority to enforce the ICC’s arrest warrant. On the day of the protests, Mamdani attempted to signal solidarity with Palestinian people by sharing a video of himself planting an olive tree with Gaza-based Palestinian families at Gracie Mansion, the official mayoral residence.
The gesture drew sharp backlash from Palestinian advocacy leaders. Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of the Palestinian-led community organization Within Our Lifetime, called the video performative politics designed to distract from the city’s actual actions.
“This is a far cry from campaigning on arresting Netanyahu. So this performative nonsense is meant to distract from the fact that hundreds of NYPD vehicles escorted Netanyahu to the UN today, giving him a grander welcome than most, if not all, heads of state. Meanwhile the NYPD was arresting anti-genocide protesters in the streets,” Kiswani wrote on social media. “Instead of arresting Netanyahu, the NYPD arrested the protesters. This is the exact opposite of what Mamdani ran on.”
Across the protest, demonstrators echoed a consistent message: the UN had no business granting Netanyahu a speaking platform, and he should instead be standing trial at the ICC in The Hague. Thaer Ahmed, a physician who volunteered treating injured civilians in Gaza, described the human cost of the conflict that drove him to protest. Ahmed told MEE that Gazan civilians are routinely targeted by 2,000-pound US-manufactured bombs, and medical workers were deliberately cut off from the life-saving supplies needed to treat casualties.
“We were deprived of the supplies that we needed to be able to treat them, and we just had to watch one by one, brought in dead, killed by the Israeli military,” he said. Ahmed added that the UN’s decision to allow Netanyahu to speak had destroyed the body’s global moral authority, saying, “I don’t think that we should be listening to what anybody at the UN General Assembly has to say, especially not listening to a child murderer by the name of Benjamin Netanyahu.”
Many Jewish demonstrators also joined the protest to separate their faith from the actions of the Israeli government. Carol Choke, a Jewish woman who lost relatives in the Holocaust, told MEE that Judaism and Zionism are distinct, and that the violence carried out in the name of the Jewish people does not align with her religion’s values.
“We take care of people, we tithe (give charity). We leave the edges of the fields for people to gather who don’t have; we don’t go destroying a whole culture,” she said.
Protests against Netanyahu were not limited to the streets outside the UN. As Netanyahu walked to the General Assembly podium to deliver his address, dozens of UN member state delegations staged a coordinated walkout, booing and jeering the Israeli leader as they left the chamber in boycott.
Even so, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of grassroots feminist anti-war organization Code Pink, told MEE that a symbolic walkout is not enough to hold Israel accountable. “What they have to do is say that we’re going to sanction Israel first, then expel Israel from the United Nations. It shouldn’t be allowed to participate,” she said.
Benjamin also condemned continued US military support for Israel, particularly in the wake of Netanyahu’s statement during his address that Israel has “no greater partner than President Trump.” She argued that any government that continues selling weapons to Israel violates the will of the majority of the American public, who oppose deepening US military entanglement with Israel.
“I think that any country that is still selling weapons to Israel should be overthrown by their people,” Benjamin said. “It shows that this country is not a democracy, because if it were, we would not be selling those weapons to Israel, and we would not have in our National Defense Authorization Act right now a section that says that we’re going to intertwine the US and the Israeli militaries even further than they are now. That goes against everything that the majority of the American people want.”