MANHATTAN (NewsNation Now) — At least 26 people were arrested after chaos erupted in Times Square during a clash between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine protesters, police said.
The protests began Thursday evening in Manhattan amid the announcement of a cease-fire in the Middle East.
Police struggled to contain the crowd. The groups were eventually separated by gates. Some protesters were throwing water bottles and other projectiles at each other.
Of the 26 arrests, 17 received summonses, eight are being processed and there was one juvenile write up, according to police.
Nearby in Manhattan’s Diamond District, a bystander was burned by a firework set off, sending a woman and two police officers to the hospital.
The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force also launched an investigation into a gang assault of a Jewish man near the protests.
A hate crime charge was filed against a 23-year-old man who allegedly beat a 29-year-old Jewish man with a crutch. Waseem Awawdeh is also charged with gang assault, menacing and criminal possession of a weapon.
New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted afterward “Anti-Semitism has NO place in our city.”
In other U.S. cities, there has been similar violence with surveliance video capturing an Orthodox Jewish man running for his life from a car flying a Palestinian flag.
Israel and Hamas announced a cease-fire would go into effect at 2 a.m. Friday, ending an 11-day war that caused widespread destruction in the Gaza Strip and brought life in much of Israel to a halt.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel accepted the Egyptian proposal after a late-night meeting of his Security Cabinet. Hamas quickly followed suit and said it would honor the deal.
The fighting erupted on May 10, when Hamas militants in Gaza fired long-range rockets toward Jerusalem. The barrage came after days of clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Heavy-handed police tactics at the compound, built on a site holy to Muslims and Jews, and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinians by Jewish settlers had inflamed tensions.
At least 230 Palestinians were killed, including 65 children and 39 women, with 1,710 people wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not break the numbers down into fighters and civilians. Twelve people in Israel, including a 5-year-old boy and 16-year-old girl, were killed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.