1,000 protest peacefully in Chicago as Dems await Tim Walz

CHICAGO ? About 1,000 people demonstrated and marched peacefully against the war in Gaza on Wednesday evening, as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz prepared to address day three of the Democratic National Convention a short distance away.

The crowd rallied in Chicago’s Union Park before marching with police escort route to a park within sight of the convention hall.

Where police had stepped in during protests over the convention's first two days to arrest dozens of people in sometimes aggressive confrontations, Wednesday's procession was largely a family affair, with dozens of children tagging along with their parents. No arrests were reported by early Wednesday night.

Chicago is home to the country's biggest Palestinian-American community, where the 10-month war and its devastating death toll have pushed residents into fervent anti-war activism and almost weekly protests against the carnage in Gaza since Oct. 7.

Many came with their elderly parents and children, including Haneen Ballouta, a dental hygienist who grew up in Cook County’s Little Palestine.

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Ballouta, who attended the protest with nine family members, said they were protesting in the hope that Democratic leaders will “see something like this and then move to end the genocide and killing of innocent people.”

But the 30-year-old said the turnout in Chicago’s Union Park was small compared with others from earlier in the year.

Majed Shaq, a 72-year-old originally from Ramallah, was also miffed. “I was really expecting more of a crowd,” he said. “In Gaza they’ve been under attack for almost a year now and it’s time to stop.”

The rhetoric became incendiary at points, with protesters chanting “over 40,000 dead, DNC your hands are red” and telling Democratic leaders to “go to hell.”

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Earlier on Wednesday, police and legal aid officials traded accusations over the arrest of dozens of protesters Tuesday night outside the Israeli consulate.

Police detained more than 70 people Tuesday night, including three journalists, during the modest demonstration and a short march that was marked by shoving between police and demonstrators and the burning of an American flag.

Most were arrested on misdemeanor charges such as disorderly conduct, Benjamin Meyer, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild, said Wednesday afternoon.

Police “tactics last night were very concerning,” he said, alleging that two demonstrators had been hospitalized since Sunday “because of police abuse.” He wouldn't specify their injuries.

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Of those arrested Tuesday night, at least 22 were from out of town, many from West coast, the city's emergency management office said. The addresses of 14 couldn't immediately be ascertained after they refused to speak to officers or provide their addresses.

Ashanti Blaize-Hopkins, national president of the Society of Professional Journalists, condemned the arrests of member of the press Tuesday night. "Journalism is not a crime and the news media should not be targeted by law enforcement simply for doing their job," she said.

Contributing: Trevor Hughes and Medora Lee, USA TODAY; Sophie Carson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dem convention Gaza protest is a peaceful family affair