In New York, activists locked arms and held banners demanding an finish to the Israel-Hamas warfare and expanded rights for Palestinians, bringing site visitors to a standstill on the Van Wyck Expressway main as much as the airport for about 20 minutes.

Video posted to social media confirmed passengers, some carrying suitcases, leaving automobiles behind and stepping over limitations onto the freeway median.

Twenty-six folks within the protest have been arrested for disorderly conduct and impeding vehicular site visitors, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey dispatched two buses to assist vacationers caught within the backup attain the airport, company spokesperson Steve Burns mentioned.

Across the similar time because the New York protest, a serious thoroughfare resulting in the Los Angeles airport was shut down by one other group of pro-Palestinian protesters, who dragged site visitors cones, trash bins, scooters and particles into the lanes, in accordance with information helicopter footage.

In a press release, the Los Angeles Police Division accused protesters of throwing a police officer to the bottom and “attacking uninvolved passerbys of their automobiles,” with out offering additional particulars about both incident.

The group appeared to flee when police arrived, although the Los Angeles Police Division mentioned site visitors across the airport remained impacted roughly two hours after the demonstration was declared illegal.

A spokesperson for the LAPD mentioned 35 folks have been arrested for rioting and one individual was arrested for battery of a police officer. No officers have been injured, in accordance with the spokesperson. An estimated 215,000 passengers and 87,000 automobiles have been anticipated to cross by means of the Los Angeles airport on Wednesday.

Since the Israel-Hamas warfare erupted on Oct. 7, close to nightly protests have damaged out in cities throughout america. In New York, pro-Palestinian organizers have responded to the rising demise toll in Gaza with escalating actions geared toward disrupting a few of the metropolis’s best-known occasions, together with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the annual tree-lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Middle.

At a information convention Tuesday, New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams criticized a few of the protest organizers’ ways and urged police might have to ramp up their response.

“I don’t consider that individuals ought to be capable to simply take over our streets and march in our streets,” he mentioned. “I don’t consider folks ought to be capable to take over our bridges. I simply don’t consider you possibly can run a metropolis this advanced the place folks can simply do no matter they need.”