Pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at New York Thanksgiving parade

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York police arrested a group of pro-Palestinian protesters who briefly interrupted the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday by attempting to block the parade route just ahead of the Ronald McDonald float.

The 98th annual parade, televised nationwide, is part of the tradition of America’s Thanksgiving holiday, a spectacle of giant balloons of cartoon characters, marching bands and popular music acts performing live. Thousands line the streets of Manhattan to watch.

“The demonstrators were taken into custody without incident,” the New York Police Department said in a statement.

The number of detainees was unknown and charges were pending, the NYPD said.

A line of about 20 protesters sat in the street under a steady rain while others behind them held up a banner saying “Don’t celebrate genocide” and “Arms embargo now!” as the smiling Ronald McDonald floated overhead, Reuters pictures showed.

Police at the scene at first advised the demonstrators to leave without intervening, according to a Reuters witness. Then a team of bicycle-mounted officers arrived, clashing with the protesters and carting them away.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who was sworn in on Monday, told NBC Television ahead of the parade that police were not expecting protesters but were ready for them.

“We’ve got lots of resources out there. We have resources you can see and resources you can’t see. We have our canines, we have our drones. We have the full complement of security out there for the parade,” Tisch said.

The demonstrators were protesting Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza, which was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023 when Palestinian fighters from Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave of Gaza has since killed more than 44,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing most of the population of 2.3 million, causing hunger and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.

(Reporting by Brendan McDermid in New York and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California, Editing by William Maclean)