Pro-Palestine protesters say New York fashion gala ‘has blood on its hands’
Pro-Palestine protesters in the United States have rebuked one of the fashion world’s glitziest festivals over its silence on and support for the Israeli regime’s genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip, saying the Met Gala 2025 “has blood on its hands” over the pro-Israel stance.
The demonstrators braved the rain on Monday night to gather about a block away from the Met Gala in New York’s Manhattan to highlight the Tel Aviv regime’s merciless onslaught on Gaza.
The area was immediately cordoned off by police as the protesters started waving Palestinian flags and chanting, “Free, Free Palestine.”
Video clips shared on social media showed protesters hopping over barricades as they marched through Central Park towards the event in condemnation of the gala’s “extreme wealth and materialism” while Israel commits genocide in Gaza.
“Not a single food or aid truck has entered Gaza for two months, leading to mass starvation of the Palestinian people,” the Within Our Lifetime protest group wrote in a post on social media.
Footage showed the intervention of police officers as the number of protesters increased and the tensions boiled over, with some being escorted away by cops while others remained behind railings.
It is the second year in a row that protests have taken place outside Met Gala, an haute couture fundraising festival held annually on the first Monday in May for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in Manhattan.
Last year, an online movement emerged calling for the blocking of celebrities on social media who had attended the Met Gala and were seen as being insensitive towards, or even supportive of, Israel’s killing of Palestinians and destruction of Gaza.
Israel launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, which has so far killed at least 52,567 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured more than 118,610 others.
The Tel Aviv regime accepted longstanding negotiation terms by the Hamas resistance group under a Gaza ceasefire, which began on January 19.
However, Israel unilaterally abandoned the truce on March 2, cutting off humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. It also resumed its deadly bombing campaign and redeployed troops to the blockaded territory.
In November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the regime’s former minister for military affairs, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Tel Aviv also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on Gaza.
