Council Member Chi Ossé posted a photo of himself in handcuffs, surrounded by NYPD officers near the United Nations, after he was arrested Thursday at a sit-in protesting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the U.N. General Assembly. “Free Palestine. Netanyahu burn in hell,” Ossé, who represents Council District 36 in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, wrote in the post.
Ossé was one of 104 people arrested at the sit-in, where protesters sat in the street at First Avenue and East 39th Street, south of U.N. headquarters, to demand an end to U.S. arms to Israel and the genocide in Gaza, according to a statement from the office of Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez. Jewish Voice for Peace organized the action and said 400 New Yorkers took part. Most participants were Jewish, and they were joined by Palestinian, Lebanese and Iranian New Yorkers, Gutiérrez’s office said.
Nine elected officials and nominees were among those arrested, according to the statement, including two more North Brooklyn officials: Gutiérrez, whose District 34 covers parts of Williamsburg, Bushwick and Ridgewood, and Assembly Member Emily Gallagher, who represents Greenpoint and Williamsburg. The others were Council Member Alexa Avilés; Aber Kawas, the Democratic nominee for State Senate; Darializa Avila Chevalier, the Democratic nominee in New York’s 13th Congressional District; and David Orkin, Christian Celeste Tate and Illapa Sairitupac, whom the office listed as Democratic nominees for State Assembly. Actor Hannah Einbinder, author Glennon Doyle and whistleblower Chelsea Manning were also arrested, the office said.
Ossé was released later Thursday. “I’m out of jail + okay,” he wrote in an Instagram story, adding, “Send Netanyahu to the Hague. Free Palestine. Free Lebanon. End the war in Iran.”
“We are safe and out of jail,” Gutiérrez wrote in her own Instagram story. “When I speak out against the genocide in Gaza, I’m speaking not only as an elected official, but as a mother who cannot accept a world where children are forced to suffer, go without food, or grow up surrounded by violence,” she said in the statement. “Every child, Palestinian or otherwise, deserves to be safe, nourished, and given the opportunity to grow up with dignity and hope.”
Gallagher posted a photo from the sit-in. “Let me say it as clearly as possible: we have a responsibility to end the genocide in Palestine,” she wrote. Bushwick Daily has asked Gallagher’s office for comment.
More than 20 city and state officials took part, according to Gutiérrez’s office. Among those it listed as present but not among the arrested were two more officials who represent parts of North Brooklyn, Council Member Sandy Nurse and State Sen. Jabari Brisport, along with Council Members Tiffany Cabán and Shahana Hanif, Assembly Member Diana Moreno and congressional nominee Brad Lander. The action was supported by groups including the Palestinian Youth Movement, NYC-DSA, the Sunrise Movement, IfNotNow and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.
“From the streets of NYC to the halls of Congress we will be relentless in our demands to stop arming Israel,” Stefanie Fox, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, said in the statement.
In his speech to the General Assembly, Netanyahu attacked New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, calling him “the antisemitic mayor of New York.”
Featured image: Photo via Chi Ossé/Instagram
