Protests in Manhattan's Washington Square Park attracted hundreds of supporters Tuesday afternoon as groups organized support for Israelis and Palestinians.
Tensions and emotions were on full display as the groups stood their ground for several hours. At one point in the night, someone burned an Israeli flag.
Initial estimates suggest a few hundred people had amassed by the park's fountain in support of Palestinians. The crowd's leaders, NYU Students for Justice in Palestine and a couple dozen other student organizations, are critical of the university's president for denouncing the terrorist attack committed by Hamas.
"In her recent statement, President [Linda] Mills makes the decision to continue this trend of dismissal and blatant erasure of the experiences of Palestinians, both at NYU and in Palestine. The statement makes no mention of the excessive violence against Palestinians in the last few days, despite 413 Palestinians having been murdered in Gaza within the past 48 hours. It is framed to portray an untrue and misrepresentative picture where 'terrorist attacks' were only occurring against Israeli citizens," the statement read, in part.
One pro-Palestinian protester spoke to News 4 about the history of occupation and the need to contextualize the current violence with what has played out over the past decades.
"It's coming on the heels of 40, 50, 60 years of occupation. I think it's really important to contextualize the violence in that way. There's no perfect way to resist apartheid -- there's only unfortunate victims on every side," Sorosh Wein said.
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The massive crowd eventually moved to the other side of the park where they stood face-to-face with a smaller group of protesters there to support Israel. The two groups appeared peaceful, but a line of NYPD officers moved in to create a divide between each. Eventually hundreds of officers responded to the park.
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No arrests were reported amid the evening's protests.
Some of the students among the few dozen gathered to stand in support of Israel expressed fears over Palestinian supporters refusing to denounce the actions of Hamas.
"For us, it's more than just Israel-Palestine. Jews around the world are scared for their lives, they feel threatened by what happened last week. Over 1,000 Jewish people died in the state of Israel and it's a very scary moment. It feels like us Jewish people haven't had to be on this high of an alert for many, many decades," Dylan Drury said.
The dueling protests mirror a similar standoff on Columbia University's campus last week, when campus officials restricted campus access to students and ID holders only.
Protests in the city have been nearly a daily occurrence since last Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel.
