Pro-Palestinian protesters rally in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO -- Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters once again demonstrated in downtown San Francisco Wednesday night.
The demonstration took place outside the Howard Street offices of BlackRock, a financial institution with ties to major companies around the world.
"I just want people at this to be curious about what's going on and not just surface level, what's going on since October 7 but what's been happening before October 7," said Rouguiata Diallo.
"To me, BlackRock is the essence of capitalist finance capital. It's part of the murderous imperialism of the U.S. around the world," said Ellen Murray, another protester.
Demonstrators said they were specifically protesting BlackRock's ties to Israel.
At the same time, protesters said they were there to bring awareness to the number of Palestinians they say are being detained in Israel.
In the past few days, dozens of Israeli hostages were released by Hamas in exchange for the release of over 100 Palestinians. But protesters say they believe many more people remain in custody in Israel.
Zayna Elkarra has family in Gaza she visited last summer.
"Most of them were not being held for a crime or anything and a lot of them are children and more people have been taken hostage than the amount that has been released in this pause," Elkarra said.
She said that many of her relatives have been killed during the conflict. She joined the protests to call for not just a pause in the fighting but a permanent cease-fire.
"As much as it's nice to have these four days where they can live, they're not even living because they're still pulling people from out of the rubble. They're still finding more dead people, people are getting killed in the West Bank and other parts of Palestine. So I think that it's not enough," Elkarra said.
Demonstrators say they plan to continue to hold protests like this throughout the Bay Area as long as the Israel-Hamas war continues.
