Hundreds stop traffic on Bay Area freeways
Morning commuters are frustrated as they face a wall of people protesting the Middle East war
Bay Area commuter traffic was brought to a halt Monday, as demonstrators calling for an end to the war in Gaza blocked the Golden Gate Bridge and Interstate 880 for hours. It was the second time protestors have shut down major highways in the region since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel plunged the Middle East into bloody conflict and spawned protests across the U.S.
The demonstrations began around 6:30 a.m. on northbound Interstate 880 in Oakland. The California Highway Patrol said protestors blocked off I-880 just south of the exit for 5th Avenue and the Embarcadero by deploying concrete-filled 55-gallon barrels — carried to the site by a rental truck — and chaining themselves to them.
Traffic backed up six miles to the Oakland Coliseum as officers worked to clear the jam.
A short distance west, at 7th Street, some 300 demonstrators impeded traffic at an on-ramp and frontage road entrance to southbound I-880, refusing orders to leave. CHP officers made arrests, working to remove the protesters and partially reopen the freeway shortly after noon.
The CHP said around 3 p.m. that all lanes of I-880 were open again in both directions.
On the Golden Gate Bridge, protesters chained themselves to vehicles starting around 8 a.m. The CHP arrested 20 protesters and reopened the span at 12:15 p.m.
“Attempting to block or shut down a freeway or state highway to protest is unlawful, dangerous, and prevents motorists from safely reaching their destinations,” the CHP said in a statement Monday.
Many motorists were not amused.
“Aaaarrrrggghhh!!!,” Bay Area photographer and writer Renate Flynn posted on X. “My daughter's stuck on the Golden Gate Bridge. She's been there for TWO HOURS and just left her car to go to the restrooms on the North Side of the bridge. This is so nuts and so ridiculous and so poten
tially hazardous if anyone should need emergency care.”
After the Oct. 7 attack — in which some 1,200 mostly civilian Israelis, including children, were killed, and more than 200 taken hostage — Israel launched a counteroffensive in Gaza. Its attacks, said to target Hamas terrorists, have killed an estimated 30,000 people, including civilians and children.
Monday's demonstrations were part of a global April 15 “economic blockade” by proPalestinian activists. A website called A15Action.com said the move was aimed at “blocking the arteries of capitalism and jamming the wheels of production” because “the global economy is complicit in genocide.” Similar demonstrations were seen in other U.S. cities including Chicago, Philadelphia and Portland, Oregon.
Protester Jon RamirezMonaco, an Oakland native who lives in San Francisco, hoisted up one of eight Palestinian flags as he stood with a group of demonstrators on 880. He said he has been protesting for the past six months, horrified by the extensive death toll he's seen in Gaza and frustrated that government leaders aren't listening to their constituents' complaints.
“I understand they would be upset,” Ramirez-Monaco said of commuters' ire. “But if I was in their position, and I knew that something was going on to help end this war, I would understand it. If I got stuck in traffic at some point, I would support it.”
The A15 Action group said in its statement that “there is a sense in the streets in this recent and unprecedented movement for Palestine that escalation has become necessary: there is a need to shift from symbolic actions to those that cause pain to the economy.” Ramirez-Monaco said he was outraged at reports of thousands of Palestinian children killed in the conflict.
“We see it every day — people who are burned, maimed, losing limbs and so on,” Ramirez-Monaco said. “Our government is paying for it, and so I felt that the least I can do is come out to these protests.”
But Tyler Gregory, chief executive officer of the Jewish Community Relations Council, a coalition of 53 synagogues and Jewish organizations around the Bay Area, said Monday that the freeway shutdown demonstrations were ill-timed coming after Iran's attacks on Israel over the weekend.
“We're in some ways reliving the trauma of Oct. 7, not knowing our relatives were going to be okay over there,” Gregory said. “You had 9 million people in bunkers and shelters, including 2 million Palestinian Israelis. Do Israeli civilians get the same attention as Gaza civilians?”
Gregory said Monday's traffic disruption wasn't persuasive and that Israelis want peace, too, but are dealing with an existential threat from neighbors who want to destroy their country.
Lawyer Michael Wara of Mill Valley had a class to teach at Stanford University's law school; he knew about the protest and had planned ahead. After spending 80 minutes sitting in traffic, he started to move — with no chance of getting to campus in time for his class.
He got home just in time to teach via videoconference.
“I support the idea of people exercising their First Amendment rights and protesting,
even if it's inconvenient to me,” Wara said. “The net cost is worth it for living in a free country.”
Officials at the Port of Oakland said that the operators of the four primary marine terminals at the port had been aware of a possible protest, and three of them — Everport, TraPac and SSA Marine — had decided not to operate Monday. Only Matson's marine terminal was open Monday, and no protesters were present there, authorities said.
Local drivers kept their trucks parked, while those from hubs such as Fresno and Reno did not come to the Bay Area, AB Trucking owner Bill Aboudi said. He added that truckers working the port will be busy
today transporting extra goods.
“All that volume will have to be picked up tomorrow,” Aboudi said.
A group of Google and Amazon workers also announced Monday that they planned “militant action” today at Google offices near Highway 237 in Sunnyvale over the Mountain View technology giant's work for the Israeli government. The protest, as part of the No Tech for Apartheid campaign, takes aim at Google's “Project Nimbus” contract with Israel, a cloud-computing project Israel said will be led in part by that nation's military.
A spokesperson for the workers said Monday that no highway or freeway
blockages were planned Tuesday in connection with actions targeting Google in Sunnyvale, New York City and Seattle. Google did not respond immediately to a request for comment Monday.
In November, protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza shut down the Bay Bridge leading into San Francisco for hours ahead of world leaders' gathering in the city for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Authorities charged some 80 demonstrators with misdemeanor violations relating to that shutdown, including blocking the roadway and false imprisonment.
Rachel Lederman, senior counsel with the Center
for Protest Law and Litigation in Oakland, which is helping with the defense of those demonstrators, said the case since has been resolved with “diversion” out of the criminal justice system. The demonstrators, she said, will perform five hours of community service with a nonprofit of their choice and the misdemeanor charges will be dropped.
Her organization is ready to assist any people charged in Monday's demonstration, she added.
“We'll be prepared to defend them and their right to speak out against genocide,” Lederman said.