Pro-Cease-fire Activists Shut Down Manhattan Bridge for Hours

Hundreds of protesters from an anti-Zionist Jewish group shut down the Manhattan Bridge on Sunday, snarling city traffic for hours.

The demonstration, organized by the activist group Jewish Voice for Peace, which favors a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, began around 2 p.m., with a large Police Department contingent on the scene.

Drivers sat bumper to bumper for at least an hour as the protesters blocked off the Manhattan entrance to the bridge, which connects Canal Street in Lower Manhattan to Downtown Brooklyn. The police diverted vehicles from the area as protesters hung a pro-Palestinian banner from the bridge over the East River.

By 3 p.m., the demonstrators were sitting in the middle of the entrance ramp under the grand arch and colonnade near Canal Street and the Bowery. Some waved Palestinian flags as they pumped their fists and chanted, “Let Gaza live.” One person scaled the arch’s stone facade and hung a Palestinian flag.

“We needed to continue to raise our voices and continue to speak out because there’s thousands of Palestinians that are under the rubble right now,” Jay Saper, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, said during the demonstration.

The protest was peaceful, and the bridge reopened around 5:30 p.m. The police did not immediately say if anyone was arrested.