Shot fired, crowd maced at pro-Palestinian protest outside Israeli solidarity event in Skokie
The melee unfolded when protesters demonstrated outside an event called to show solidarity with Israel at a banquet hall Sunday evening. Protestors as well as a Chicago police officer and a Sun-Times reporter were hit by pepper spray.
Two people were taken into police custody Sunday evening after one man allegedly fired a shot in the air near a group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators protesting an Israeli solidarity event in the northern suburbs and another man maced the group, which included a Sun-Times reporter.
No one was injured by the gunshot. Another protester was struck in a hit and run, police said, but was not seriously injured.
The melee unfolded outside an event called to show solidarity with Israel at Ateres Ayala, a banquet hall in Skokie near the border with Lincolnwood. The event was held by the Chicago-based Midwest Regional Office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. More than a dozen organizations took part, including the Mobile Museum of Tolerance, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish United Fund, the Jewish National Fund and others. About 1,000 people attended, organizers said.
A separate Jewish group had planned a “peace and prayer” rally in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war in Federal Plaza in the Loop Sunday, but an organizer said it was canceled after the group was threatened. Pro-Palestinian groups had also planned a demonstration for Federal Plaza, but after the Jewish rally was canceled the groups decided to move the protest to Skokie when they learned about the Israeli solidarity event.
Hatem Abudayyeh, national chair of U.S. Palestinian Community Network, said in a statement they moved the protest because the Jewish groups “must be confronted as the racist apologists for Israel that they are.”
A crowd of about 200 pro-Palestinian protesters had gathered about 4 p.m. outside the Skokie event but were kept some distance away from the actual property by police. Shortly after 5:30 p.m., a smaller group of protesters moved south across Touhy Avenue after some protesters said they had been threatened.
“Several disturbances broke out on the perimeter of the event and in Lincolnwood,” Skokie police in a statement.