Update, 2:05 p.m.:
As traffic starts moving again — albeit slowly through previously blocked sections of Interstate 880 in Oakland and U.S. 101 over the Golden Gate Bridge — officials with the California Highway Patrol said certain methods used by protesters necessitated an “intricate operation” and made things particularly difficult for law enforcement.
In a statement posted to Facebook, CHP said the protesters who shut down northbound I-880 at Embarcadero had chained themselves to 55-gallon drums filled with cement. The protesters who shut down the Golden Gate Bridge chained themselves to stationary vehicles, the statement said.
CHP officials said arrests of protesters who blocked southbound I-880 in West Oakland and refused orders to disperse are ongoing. Approximately 20 people were arrested at the Golden Gate Bridge, according to the statement, and CHP promised arrests of the protesters who chained themselves to the drums of cement.
Update, 1:10 p.m.:
Traffic is trickling through on northbound I-880 in Oakland. Two lanes are now open, but protesters and CHP officers remain on the roadway.
One lane of southbound I-880 in West Oakland has just been reopened, with two lanes remaining blocked, according to CHP.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, both directions of the Golden Gate Bridge are open again after protesters blocked traffic for more than four hours.
Original story:
Beginning shortly before 7 a.m. Monday, protesters blocked all lanes of the northbound I-880 freeway in Oakland north of the 23rd Ave exit to decry Israel’s ongoing military assault and blockade of Gaza.
Dozens of activists converged on the freeway and sat in the roadway, with CHP officers in riot gear gathering in front of and behind the demonstrators.
Another group of approximately 300 protesters marched from the West Oakland BART station onto southbound I-880 via the 7th Street on-ramp at about 8 a.m., effectively shutting down both directions of the freeway through Oakland. By 9:45 a.m. California Highway Patrol officers were attempting to disperse the demonstrators. At least one protester has been arrested.
“Calls for a ceasefire and for aid to be let in [to Gaza] have been unheard,” said Hay Sha Wiya Falcon, a Bay Area-based Lakota activist who joined the West Oakland demonstrators. “It’s very clear if you look at who’s funding our representatives… money is what talks to them. And I think to have this worldwide economic blockade, which has spread to 55 cities and six continents, the world is speaking very loudly about what we want to see, and that’s a liberated Palestine.”
Monday’s action is part of a multi-city coordinated economic protest, referred to as A15, aiming to disrupt local and global economies in order to put pressure on people and governments to divest from Israel and weapons manufacturers that supply its military.
“Oakland remains a place where we rebel against all of the injustices carried out in the interest of the US led, global economy. We must do that now for Palestine,” organizers of the event in Oakland wrote in an Instagram post ahead of the protest. “Clog the arteries of capital! Free Palestine!”
“I’m a health care worker, and one of the things that has been most disturbing to me about the genocide that’s happening in Palestine is the total disregard for human life,” said Mike Sweeney, who joined the West Oakland protesters. “The Israeli military is essentially… destroying every pillar of health and wellness in Palestine, destroying hospitals… specifically targeting centers of healing [including] doctors and nurses. I’ve never seen this level of violence in my life. And so that’s why I’m here.”
On Instagram, A15 organizers said their effort was born out of “frustration with symbolic actions” and that their goals are to “cause impact to the global economy complicit in genocide.”
Related actions are planned throughout the Bay Area on Monday, including at Warm Springs Bart station at 5:30 p.m., when protesters plan to march to the Fremont Tesla factory.
In San Francisco, dozens of protesters shut down all southbound lanes across the Golden Gate Bridge at 7:30 a.m. Organizers also plan to hold a rally at noon in United Nations Plaza and march to the Internal Revenue Service offices to hold a teach-in.
