Dozens of anti-Israel agitators stormed and occupied the lobby of the Israeli consulate in San Francisco on Monday, before police arrested nearly 70 people who refused to leave the building.
Police zip-tied the hands of protesters, stuffed them into police cars and drove them away.
Officers arrested 69 people who refused to leave the building, cited them and released them from the San Francisco County Jail, the San Francisco Police Department said in a statement. Another demonstrator was summoned on the same charge and released at the scene, the report said.
Demonstrators were warned multiple times to leave the building before being detained, according to the San Francisco Police Department.
Major US law firm sues Palestinian students seeking justice over accusations of supporting Hamas ‘terrorist activities’
The offices of the Israeli consulate in San Francisco were occupied by anti-Israel demonstrators on Monday. (KTVU photographer Alan Leong)
Demonstrators occupied the consulate lobby for several hours. They posted signs on their front doors demanding an end to Israel’s war with Hamas.
Protesters reportedly told the San Francisco Chronicle they would not leave unless forced. Police then blocked the building’s doors and ordered protesters to leave, the TV station reported.
A consulate spokesman told Fox News Digital that no staff members were injured.
Lawyer: Hamas uses anti-Israel campus groups to recruit future U.S. leaders to join ‘terrorist cult’
The offices of the Israeli consulate in San Francisco were occupied by anti-Israel demonstrators on Monday. (KTVU photographer Alan Leong)
“We are alarmed, but not surprised, by the attempts by a small number of pro-Hamas thugs to violently disrupt our ability to function as a diplomatic mission. They will not succeed,” Consul General Marco Sermonetta said. “Enter the consulate building The people in the lobby of the building were the same people who were celebrating the rape, maiming, burning alive and murder of hundreds of Israelis just one day after October 7th.”
Trump tells donors he will stop ‘radical revolution’ at universities and ‘drive anti-Israel agitators out of the country’
Selmonetta added that since Hamas invaded Israel that day, mobs of demonstrators have made Bay Area campuses “uninhabitable” and “dangerous for Jews.”
Sermonetta said the rioters also turned a city council meeting into a “despicable spectacle of anti-Semitism and denial of mass atrocities.”
Click to Get the Fox News App
“We appreciate [the San Francisco Police Department] We thank them for their quick response and will continue to ensure that we provide all services as usual,” he added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
