Police handcuff scores of pro-Palestine protesters on the Manhattan Bridge

Cops took scores of pro-Palestinian protesters into custody on the Manhattan Bridge Saturday afternoon as they walked from Brooklyn into Manhattan, blocking traffic, police said.

Protesters met outside the Barclays Center around 2 p.m. before splitting into groups, with one group marching northwest toward the bridge, according to protesters.

More than a hundred protesters occupied the bridge and blocked traffic in the upper westbound lanes as they marched toward Manhattan, according to NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry and police.

Bird’s eye footage posted by Daughtry on X showed officers intercepting the protesters and then taking several into custody.

“This is more than an inconvenience, it poses a risk to public safety,” Daughtry wrote in the post. “The NYPD will always protect freedom of speech and protest, but we will not tolerate lawlessness!”

Protesters later gathered in Chatham Square near the criminal courthouse, waiting for the arrested protesters to be released.

Police could not immediately confirm how many people were arrested.

Protester Nas Issa, 26, said Saturday’s rally was held to commemorate the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, the annual mass expulsion of Palestinians during the founding of Israel in 1948.

“What we are seeing is history repeating itself with the destruction of homes, the mass displacement of people and the murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians,” she said. “And that is why we have called this march today, both in honor of the ‘Nakba,’ but also to demand an end to the ongoing genocide.”

Last year, the UN General Assembly called for the anniversary of the Nakba to be celebrated on May 15 for the first time in history.