🇵🇸 Palestinian Prisoners Day Protest
🗓️ Thursday, April 17th, 2025
🕒 3 PM
📍 New York Stock Exchange

Join us on April 17th, 2025 to commemorate Palestinian Prisoners Day as we take the streets and mobilize for the liberation of our prisoners.

Over 10,000 Palestinian prisoners have been abducted and continue to be held in “israeli” prisons, where they’re subjected to severe torture. Since October 7, 63 Palestinian prisoners have been martyred, and at least 40 more prisoners from Gaza have been murdered by the IOF as part of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Children, mothers, and the elderly have been subjected to starvation, physical abuse, and unimaginable forms of torture. Last week, the child prisoner, Walid Ahmed was killed while in “israeli” custody, as the lives of thousands more are threatened under the occupation's policy of a systematic slow execution.

Join us to demand an end to the genocide and the liberation of our prisoners, as they are the compass to the complete liberation of Palestine.

The protest began outside of the United Nations, where New Yorkers gathered to demand an end to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. We began by confronting the hypocrisy of the United Nations as it commemorated World Health Day, highlighting the evisceration of maternal and newborn healthcare in Gaza as bombs continue to rain down on mothers and babies. Yet, as we took to the streets to fight for Palestinian lives and justice, our health and safety were directly threatened by zionist violence.

WOL Chair Nerdeen Kiswani, who is eight months pregnant, was on the front lines of this protest — standing up in defense of Palestinian mothers and babies alike. Yet, despite being visibly pregnant and at great personal risk, the NYPD physically assaulted her while she was attempting to highlight the unfolding zionist violence that was unfolding right before our eyes.

As we began marching from the United Nations to Grand Central, it was clear that we were headed toward the Israeli Consulate General. But as we approached, the NYPD deliberately blocked our path. They forced us to turn right onto East 43rd St. Street, kettling us into a narrow corridor — a practice forbidden by the Department’s settlement agreement with the ACLU. The crowd was trapped, and there was no way out. They threatened arrests, and we were left with no choice but to move in the direction they dictated. This wasn’t crowd control — it was a trap set up for us.

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Not even when police officers themselves were hit by the projectiles. Instead of taking action against the assailant, the NYPD continued to target us for protesting a genocide paid for with our tax dollars.

When Within Our Lifetime Chair Nerdeen Kiswani exposed the hypocrisy of the NYPD’s inaction, she was physically assaulted by an officer. Nerdeen is eight months pregnant, a fact the NYPD knew as she had announced it at the start of the protest. Yet, they still chose to assault her for highlighting the NYPD’s crackdown on Palestine and protection of zionist agitators.

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But the NYPD’s double standard isn’t new — their officers have not hesitated to enter buildings in order to target Palestinian organizers and activists in the past.

In Bay Ridge, a Palestinian neighborhood in Brooklyn, during WOL’s annual Nakba day rally on May 18, 2024, an officer scaled a building’s fire escape, attempting to enter a private home without a warrant because a speaker had been placed outside a window to amplify our voices. Similarly, on February 10, 2024, police swarmed into a building across from the Brooklyn Museum after a banner was displayed from the roof, attempting to arrest those inside.

Meanwhile, when a Zionist throws feces and bleach at us from a high-rise, the NYPD says, “We can’t do anything.”

It’s clear. The police are not here to protect us.

They are here to protect Zionist terror.

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Throughout the entire protest, the NYPD had a drone in the sky, monitoring and surveilling us from above. This is an extension of the NYPD’s surveillance program on Muslim and Arab communities, which they claim was “shut down” when the NYPD’s Demographics Unit was disbanded, yet we have seen our communities targeted as part of the crackdown on Palestine.

However, when it comes to tracking a person hurling dangerous projectiles from a luxury high-rise, they couldn’t use their drone to identify the assailant? The surveillance state only seems to function when it’s aimed at us, not when it’s time to hold Zionists accountable for their violence.

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This kind of violence isn’t new—it mirrors what happens in Hebron in the occupied West Bank every day. Zionist settlers have been throwing sewage, human waste, garbage, and wine onto Palestinian homes and markets for years. These settlers are allowed to do so with impunity, while Palestinians live under nets just to survive the constant rain of filth.

What happened yesterday in Manhattan is no different.

From Hebron to NYC, Zionists attack from above—and the system is built to protect the perpetrators. Meanwhile in Gaza, Palestinians have U.S.-made bombs and missiles raining down on them, massacring entire families and destroying whole neighborhoods for the past 18 months.

Despite all of the violence, the assaults, and the threats of arrests, we did not back down. The NYPD failed to prevent us from making our message heard. We still made our way into Grand Central Station, despite their attempts to block us. We reached thousands of people, and we sent a clear message: No matter how much intimidation and repression they launch at us, we will continue to fight for Gaza.

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