Pro Hamas March Near Crown Heights Closes Brooklyn Bridge

By Hamodia Staff

During a march through Brooklyn on Saturday, thousands of pro-Hamas protesters shut down the Brooklyn Bridge, hailing the barbaric Hamas terrorists’ attacks on Israel on October 7^th in which innocent mothers and babies were brutally murdered.

The march, deemed “Flood Brooklyn for Gaza,” began in front of the Brooklyn Museum in Crown Heights not far from the Hasidic Lubavitcher headquarters on Eastern Parkway, where the Chabad on Campus Shabbaton was underway.

The demonstrators — holding signs with antisemitic slogans such as “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free” — converged on the Brooklyn Bridge, stopping traffic on the Manhattan-bound side around 6 p.m. NYPD shut down traffic on the Brooklyn-bound side as a precautionary measure,” the NY Post reported.

A heavy NYPD presence was visible along the route, and two NYPD helicopters flew above the Brooklyn Bridge and police drones were used as well. There were no reported arrests.

The rowdy protesters damaged and graffitied patrol cars.

David Greenfield, a former New York City Councilman who now heads the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, lashed out at the protests’ sponsors for choosing to hold an anti-Israel protest in Crown Heights on Shabbos, which has a sizable population of Hasidic Jews.

“It’s not an accident that pro-Hamas activists would pick this place to protest Jews,” he said.

Rabbi Motti Seligson, a spokesman for the Chabad Lubavitch Media Center, noted the march was scheduled the same weekend as the Chabad Campus event when more than 1,000 college students from around the world gather in Crown Heights.

“We’re seeing forces of evil that are promoting murder genocide of Israelis and civilians in Gaza because of the support for the terrorist elements that are in their midst,” he said.

“It was a beautiful Shabbos, baruch Hashem,” a Crown Heights resident told Hamodia. “There were 1,400 college students here for the Chabad on Campus Shabbaton, plus another few hundred shluchim and shluchos to chaperone them. A lot of beautiful stuff, with these college students happy to be here and we happy to host them.”

Several surrounded cars at the intersection of Canal and Worth Streets and immobilized them.

Some protesters were heard screaming, “Long Live Hamas” as they paraded past the corner of 4th Avenue and East 13th Street.

The protest ended with hundreds flooding Union Square.

On Friday night, protesters filled the main concourse at Grand Central Station, and two hundred were arrested by the NYPD.