Thirty-six people were taken into custody at LAX, where
demonstrators became unruly, the Los Angeles Police Department
said.
"Protesters threw a police officer to the ground, used
construction debris, road signs, tree branches and blocks of
concrete to obstruct" a road leading into the airport "while
attacking uninvolved passersby in their vehicles," police said
in a statement.
Most of those detained were booked on rioting charges and at
least one was arrested for battery on a police officer,
according to the statement.
Airport police said the entrance to the complex was reopened
within about 45 minutes with "no impacts to fights," the Los
Angeles City News Service reported.
Across the country, the Port Authority Police Department of New
York said 26 people were arrested for disorderly conduct and
impeding vehicular traffic during a protest along the Van Wyck
Expressway inside JFK Airport in Queens.
During the disruption, the Port Authority dispatched two airport
buses offering rides to travelers caught in the resulting
traffic backup to help them reach the airport safely, the agency
said.
The roadway was reopened after about 20 minutes, police said.
Local news coverage of both protests showed demonstrators
carrying banners with messages such as "free Palestine" and
"divest from genocide," in opposition to Israeli military action
in the Gaza Strip over the past 11 weeks.
The protests came as the U.N. health agency reported thousands
of people trying to flee fighting that has raged in the coastal
Palestinian enclave since the Iranian-backed militant group
Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7.
Some 1,200 people were killed in the surprise cross-border raid,
marking the deadliest day in Israel's history.
A sustained Israeli counterattack on Gaza by air, land and sea
has killed at least 21,000 and wounded more than 55,000 others,
according to the Gaza health ministry. Nearly all of Gaza's 2.3
million people have been driven from their homes.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Kanishka Singh in
Washington; Editing by Michael Perry)
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