Fights Break Out between Pro-Palestine, Pro-Israel Protesters in NYC

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Israeli consulate-general on Second Avenue on Tuesday, as the Israeli military bombed the Gaza Strip and Hamas and Islamic Jihad launched hundreds of rockets into occupied territories.

A local videographer captured a moment when several young men got into a fistfight, cursing each other out in Arabic and Hebrew, as a group of NYPD officers wearing facemasks tried to pry them apart.

Another video showed a group of young women in hijab walking past a fenced-in area with pro-Israel protesters. The group chanted “Free free Palestine” and one of them told the journalists, “You’re getting the wrong story.”

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There were protests in other US cities as well. Demonstrators in Washington, DC, built a float in the shape of a tank and chanted calling Israel “terrorist” and “racist”.

The most recent violence began as Israeli police clashed with Palestinians protesting the eviction of several families from the Jerusalem al-Quds neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, in favor of Israeli settlers. Over the weekend, hundreds were injured as protests took place outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Palestinian resistance groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad launched rockets into occupied territories on Monday, and continued the barrage on Tuesday after an Israeli airstrike on Gaza demolished a 12-story high-rise.