Protesters Plan To Disrupt Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting

Crime & Safety

Protesters Plan To Disrupt Rockefeller Center Tree Lighting Police said that they anticipate protests and officers will be on hand at the tree lighting.

This year's tree after being installed at Rockefeller Center on Nov. 11. (Peggy Bayard/Patch)

MIDTOWN, NY — Pro-Palestinian protest organizers are calling on supporters to gather at Wednesday evening's tree-lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center, according to social media posts.

The tree-lighting ceremony, organizers say, falls on the same day as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, a day observed since 1977.

According to a social media post by Within Our Lifetime , a Palestinian-led group, Jerusalem's 13 official churched and the Bethlehem Municipality, located within the West Bank, had "called to suspend Christmas celebrations in mourning for the ongoing genocide in Gaza."

A translated Facebook post from the Bethlehem Municipality, the birthplace of Jesus, states that officials and members of the clergy decided to suspend all Christmas celebrations aside from religious rituals and instead "organize events in order to deliver protest messages repelling aggression against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank where the world's eyes are focused on the cradle of Christ at this time."

NYPD officials told the Daily News that they were aware of the plans for a tree-lighting protest, and that they would be prepared.

“We do anticipate that there will be protests in the city on Wednesday — to include around the area of the tree lighting — and at future gatherings around the city in the days and weeks to come, as we have seen over the past seven weeks,” the spokesperson told the Daily News. “The NYPD will be on hand to protect the tree lighting and all those attending, and we will not tolerate disruption or any threats to public safety.”

Police arrested 34 protesters who disrupted the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade last week, where some protesters glued themselves to the pavement along the parade route.

Officials said this week that paint smeared on the New York Public Library's Stephen Schwarzman building, named for the Blackstone Group CEO whose company pledged $7 million to aid in Israel earlier this year, could cost up to $75,000 to repair .

That Thanksgiving protest was organized by the group Within Our Lifetime, the same group planning Wednesday's tree-lighting protest.

"Palestine is the birthplace of Christianity," the group wrote, "Jesus was a Palestinian, how can celebrations go on as normal when his birthplace is being attacked in the last few weeks alone 20,000 Palestinians including 8,000 children have been killed?"

According to the New York Times, over 14,000 people have been killed by Israeli military strikes in Gaza since Hamas militants killed 1,200 in the brutal Oct. 7 attacks.

About 10,000 of the people killed in Gaza were women and children, the Times reports.

Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. .

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here