Watch: Working Class Families Shut Down Traffic in BK to Protest Gaza Genocide

NYPD cops haul off NYC-DSA organizer and former NYS Assembly candidate Eon Tyrell Huntley during Sunday’s protest in Grand Army Plaza. Photos/Video/Joe Maniscalco

Thanks for reading! If you value this reporting and would like to help keep Work-Bites on the job AND GROWING, please consider becoming a “Work-Bites Builder” today for just $2.50 per month. Work-Bites is a completely independent 501c3 nonprofit news organization dedicated to our readers — and we need your support! Invite friends, family, and co-workers to subscribe to the Work-Bites Wake Up Call!!

By Joe Maniscalco

New Yorkers increasingly outraged at the “deliberate” and “systemic” starvation of Palestinian families in Gaza—and the U.S. role in perpetuating the slaughter—shut down traffic at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn on Sunday, resulting in the arrest of 17 refusing to abandon the protest.

“Our work is working,” Susan Kang, an associate professor and PSC-CUNY member at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told the hundreds of supporters gathered at Grand Army Plaza on Aug. 3. “This whole idea that the third rail of Democratic Party politics in the U.S. has to be unwavering support for Israel—we’re destroying that. They want to be in denial, but too bad.”

A Palestinian woman named “Yazmeen” expecting twins and working as a nurse here in New York City denounced the “live-streamed holocaust, genocide” and “complete destruction of a people” happening in Gaza—as well as the brutal reality of forced starvation and a condition called “Refeeding syndrome [RFS].”

“With referring syndrome the body forgets how to digest food for its nutrients,” she said. “Even if food ever reaches adults and children it would not fix the problem. Babies are not receiving the specialized formula they require to thrive.”

New Yorkers challenging U.S. complicity in the starvation of Palestinian families in Gaza shut down traffic at Grand Army Plaza on Aug. 3.

Baby formula was reportedly part of the cargo of aide Amazon Labor Union co-founder Chris Smalls was attempting to help deliver to Gaza last week as part of the Freedom Flotilla when Israeli military forces took over the ship carrying Smalls and 21 others. Smalls, the only Black person aboard the vessel, was reportedly beaten in detention before being released and returning home on Aug. 1.

“It pains and sickens me to be here in front of you speaking to you in this situation,” Yazmeen said on Sunday. “My existence in birthing more Palestinian babies is my resistance since we are not viewed as human beings, but as human animals.”

A nine-year-old protester named “Ramona” said she is tired of seeing kids just like her in Gaza being “slaughtered and murdered.” She also said she is tired of politicians like [Sen.] Chuck Schumer, [Sen.] Kirsten Gillibrand, [Mayor] Eric Adams, and many more.”

“I’m tired of them acting like it’s totally normal,” she said.

New York State Assembly Member Marcela Mitaynes [D-51st District] was among the 17 to be arrested during Sunday’s Grand Army Plaza protest.

NYS Assembly Member Marcela Mitaynes [r] was among those arrested at Grand Army Plaza this weekend.

“Silence in the face of genocide is complicity and I refuse to be complicit,” she said ahead of her arrest. “What is happening in Gaza is not a tragedy,  it is not a conflict—it is a genocide. A deliberate, systemic starvation and slaughter of children, parents, elders, and communities. And it’s being carried out with U.S. weapons and our tax dollars.”

Former Congress Member Jamaal Bowman, who lost his seat last year after Pro-Israel PACs reportedly spent more than $14 million to oust him, called the Untied States Congress “corrupt and rotten to the core.”

“And I am disgusted and ashamed of how leaders in New York State cannot show the moral leadership that we need in this moment,” he said. “If Senator Schumer, Senator Gillibrand and [Rep.] Hakeem Jeffries cannot show the moral leadership that we need in this moment they do not deserve to be in office.”

The New York City Democratic Socialists of America, in coalition with Jewish Voice for Peace, UAW 9a, and Brooklyn Families for Palestine, organized Sunday’s demonstration and ensuing act of civil disobedience.

“The people in Gaza aren’t dying because the world doesn’t know,” Assembly Member Mitaynes continued ahead of her arrest. “They are dying because of political leaders—including Democratic leadership here in New York. They have chosen to turn their backs on humanity.”

Watch video of the arrests below: