Nearly 100 anti-Israel agitators stormed and occupied the lobby of the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco on Monday before police arrested several for not leaving the grounds.
FOX 2 in San Francisco reported that it was not immediately clear how many activists were detained, though a spokesperson for the consulate said roughly 100 demonstrators entered the building.
Police responded to the scene with vans to remove the demonstrators, and the station said at least a dozen were removed from the consulate.
Demonstrators were warned multiple times to leave the building before they were detained, according to the San Francisco Police Department.
The San Francisco Israeli Consulate office was occupied by anti-Israel demonstrators on Monday. (KTVU photographer Alan Leong)
Protesters reportedly told the San Francisco Chronicle they would not leave unless forced to do so. Police then blocked the doors of the building and ordered the protesters to leave, the station reported.
A spokesperson for the consulate told Fox News Digital no staff members were injured.
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The San Francisco Israeli Consulate office was occupied by anti-Israel demonstrators on Monday. (KTVU photographer Alan Leong)
“We are appalled, but not surprised, at the attempt by a handful of pro-Hamas rioters to violently compromise our ability to operate as a diplomatic mission. They will not succeed,” Consul General Marco Sermoneta said. “The people who entered the lobby of the building where the Consulate is situated are the same people who have celebrated the rape, maiming, burning alive, and murder of hundreds of Israelis barely a day after October 7th.”
Sermoneta added that since Hamas invaded Israel that day, mobs of demonstrators have made campuses in the Bay Area “inhospitable” and “dangerous to Jews.”
The mobs also turned city council meetings into “despicable spectacles of antisemitism and mass-atrocity denial,” Sermoneta said.
“We thank [the San Francisco Police Department] for their rapid response and will continue to ensure that we provide all services as usual,” he added.
Source: www.foxnews.com