Dueling demonstrations outside the Museum of Tolerance turned violent Wednesday night.
Inside, a private screening of video of atrocities from the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel was underway. Outside, horns were sounding, flags were waving, and shouting matches were erupting. Before the night was over, sirens blared as fistfights broke out.
Tensions reached a boiling point after the screening ended, with pepper spray and punches flying in the parking lot of a nearby Shell gas station. At least one person was detained by police.
About 50 protesters had gathered outside the museum prior to the start of the 47-minute film titled “Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre.” The film is a compilation of video from the attacks, gathered by the Israeli military. An estimated 1,400 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage in the Oct. 7 attacks. In response, Israel has bombarded the Gaza Strip and initiated a ground invasion with the stated goal of eradicating Hamas. More than 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, most of them women and minors, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
Outside the Los Angeles museum at the corner of Roxbury Drive and Pico Boulevard, protesters waved U.S. and Israeli flags, and a woman used a bullhorn to chant, “Bring them home,” a reference to the Israeli hostages.
Los Angeles police officers were scattered among both groups, who were gathered on opposite sides of the intersection.
One pro-Israeli protester held a poster showing a 4-year-old child held hostage by Hamas. Another woman shouted into a bullhorn: “You can’t take away history. Jews are indigenous to Israel. Decolonize.”
On the other side, a man held up a sign reading “Honk for Ceasefire!” and a cacophony of honking from passing cars filled the air.
Miguel Angel Arias, 33 , whose wife is Palestinian, said he came out to demonstrate against the private screening at the Museum of Tolerance.
“You have a film that is being shown at a time when people are calling for a cease-fire,” he said. “The screening is only for a few privileged people and it doesn’t lead to conversation.”
As a small number of protesters gathered Wednesday outside the Museum of Tolerance, about 150 viewers screened footage from the Oct. 7 attacks, compiled by the Israel Defense Forces.
Arias believed the video would be used to justify the killing of innocent Palestinians.
“If it’s a video about a massacre, wouldn’t you want everyone to see it?” he said.
At one point in the night, a small group of demonstrators draped in or carrying Israeli flags crossed to where the pro-Palestinian protesters were standing, and shouting matches broke out. A pro-Israeli protester moved through the crowd chanting through a bullhorn, “Terrorists go home,” before being confronted by a pro-Palestinian demonstrator also yelling through a bullhorn.
Shauna Johnson, a nearby resident, said she was on her evening walk when she saw the demonstrators and decided to return to show her support for Israel. She said of the film being screened at the museum: “My thought was that they’re trying to show they’re not making things up.”
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Johnson said that, although she supports Israel, she has empathy for the Palestinian people and their suffering in the war. Looking at the protesters across the way, she said she wished the two sides could just hear each other out.
After most of the protesters dispersed, a smaller group was arguing in a gas station parking lot. The fight resulted in pulled hair and a few people being pepper sprayed. A Times photographer had his glasses broken. At least one woman was punched in the face by a man who then walked away while police were rushing to stop the group from fighting.
An LAPD helicopter hovered overhead asking the crowd to disperse. About a dozen officers intervened to separate the crowd. The area was doused in spilled milk and water as people tried to wash the pepper spray from their eyes.
Wednesday’s brawl took place three days after a Jewish man, Paul Kessler, died as a result of a confrontation at a similar Israel-Hamas war demonstration in Southern California. No arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.
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