Nada El-Hillal began the protest by leading [00:00:02] the chant: “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!” The chant is a call for the elimination of the State of Israel. She later led [00:11:50] the chants: “Stop the crime! Israel out of Palestine! From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free! One two three four, occupation no more! Five, six, seven, eight, we will not cooperate!”
Abadi marched [00:46:30] wearing a keffiyeh around her shoulders and holding a sign that said: “Free Gaza Palestine” in English and “Free Palestine” in Farsi. She joined in the chant: “Occupation is a crime! Free, free Palestine!” A few minutes later, she chanted [00:52:14] with the crowd: “Resistance is justified when people are occupied!”
Protesters then marched while leaders led [00:41:53] the chants: “There is only one solution! Intifada, revolution!”
Since the early 2000s, the term “intifada,” which translates from Arabic as “uprising” or “insurrection,” has carried the connotation of violence.
Brice Peterson, who was also a speaker, marched with other protesters and joined them in intentionally blocking [01:08:45] commuter traffic. He slammed [01:08:47] his hand on one of the cars when its driver tried to move slowly past the protesters. He then threatened [01:09:27] the driver, yelling: “Don’t do it, do not do it! I will break your f**king window and beat the f**k out of you! Don’t you dare!”
During Peterson’s incident with the driver, a march leader chanted [01:09:17]: “Israel, Israel, you can’t hide! We charge you with genocide!”
After the march ended at the west side of City Hall, one speaker said [01:15:01]: “We need to end the blockade on Gaza and support the Palestinian resistance in any way that we can. We need to be boycotting Israeli companies. We need to be taking action. This is a settler colonialist project and we need to shut it down, finally.”
Israel and Egypt implemented a UN-approved [pp. 39–41] joint blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2011 to stop Hamas terrorists from acquiring more sophisticated rockets. During Israel's 2023-2025 war against Hamas, Hamas went around the blockade by smuggling weaponry through tunnels under the Philadelphi corridor separating Gaza from Egypt.
Toward the end of the rally, Ahmed Shaat, a protest leader holding a bullhorn, threw [01:28:01] two Israeli flags on the pavement. Other protesters then proceeded to trample on the flags.
Mohammad Omaren, another protest leader, burned [01:28:20] the flags while Shaat led [01:28:26] protesters in the chant: “Allahu Akbar! [God is the greatest]. Protesters chanted [01:28:32]: “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! The occupation has got to go!”
Shaat then yelled [01:28:57]: “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! The yahoodi [Jew] must go!” Omaren then trampled [01:30:30] on the Israeli flags repeatedly.
Multiple signs over the course of the rally promoted hatred of Israel. One protester held a sign that read: “Stop Israeli Holocaust against Palestinians.” Temple SJP posted photos to Instagram from the protest that featured a sign claiming [slide 5] Israel was a “TERRORIST STATE.” Another sign accused [slide 4] America and Israel, saying: “THERE IS BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS.”
