Stars and NY nominee detained blocking streets near UN

Police zip-tied Susan Sarandon’s hands and led her to a police bus on First Avenue near United Nations headquarters on Sept. 24, 2026. Officers did the same with Hannah Einbinder.

The NYPD reported 103 people detained.

The sit-in took place at First Avenue and 39th Street as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to address the General Assembly. Jewish Voice for Peace organized the action. Crowd estimates ranged from roughly 200 to more than 400. Demonstrators wore matching white T-shirts reading “Fund people not bombs.” Signs carried the messages “No war,” “Free Palestine,” “End the genocide,” and “Stop arming Israel.”

Protesters sat down in the roadway after police ordered dispersal. Officers on bicycles surrounded those who stayed. Arrests followed one by one. As detainees were placed on buses, the group chanted “Netanyahu go to hell.”

An NYPD spokesperson described the sequence in plain terms: “Members of the NYPD Community Affairs Bureau issued … warnings, advising participants that they should leave. They continued to block the intersection. Multiple individuals who didn't comply were taken into custody.”

Sarandon is 79. Einbinder, 31, stars in Hacks. Also reported among those taken into custody were comedian Caleb Hearon, author Glennon Doyle, former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, New York City Council member Chi Ossé, and Democratic congressional candidate Darializa Avila-Chevalier. Cynthia Nixon and Elliot Page were among the public figures present at the protest. Video of the detentions circulated quickly. The New York Post put the total at 104. Times of India, citing Reuters, reported at least 30 arrested. Precise charges were not publicly detailed in available accounts, and reports used both “arrested” and “detained” for the same scene.

Avila-Chevalier, 32, is the Democratic nominee for New York’s 13th Congressional District after defeating five-term incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat in the June primary. In a district that reliably elects Democrats, that victory all but assures her a seat in the next Congress. Her campaign treated the custody as a political statement. “Darializa was just arrested while peacefully protesting Netanyahu's speech at the United Nations,” a campaign statement said. It continued: “Our government has unlimited funds to arm a genocide against Palestinians but tells us there's nothing left to feed and house our own people. Stop arming Israel!”

Avila-Chevalier went further in her own words: “Netanyahu belongs at the Hague, not in the streets of New York City, and certainly not addressing the United Nations General Assembly.” A separate campaign statement declared: “As the Democratic Nominee for New York's 13th Congressional District, I refuse to allow a war criminal to roam the streets of our city unchallenged.”

Before seeking office, Avila-Chevalier helped launch the Columbia University Apartheid Divest boycott campaign. Prior Fox News Digital reporting found that CUAD posted “Death to America.” The woman now headed to Washington helped build that campus effort and then chose a blocked Manhattan intersection, and custody, as the stage for her argument against a U.S. ally.