Dozens of anti-Israel agitators stormed and occupied the lobby of the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco on Monday before police arrested nearly 70 for not leaving the grounds.
Police zip-tied the hands of protesters, put them in police vans and drove them away.
Officers arrested 69 people who refused to vacate the building, cited them, and released them from San Francisco County Jail, the San Francisco Police Department said in a statement. Another demonstrator was cited and released at the scene for the same charge, it said.
Demonstrators were warned multiple times to leave the building before they were detained, according to the San Francisco Police Department.
The San Francisco Israeli Consulate office was occupied by anti-Israel demonstrators on Monday. (KTVU photographer Alan Leong)
The demonstrators occupied the lobby of the consulate for several hours. They put up signs on the front doors demanding an end to the Israel-Hamas war.
Protesters reportedly told the San Francisco Chronicle they would not leave unless forced to do so. Police then blocked the doors of the building and ordered the protesters to leave, the station reported.
A spokesperson for the consulate told Fox News Digital no staff members were injured.
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The San Francisco Israeli Consulate office was occupied by anti-Israel demonstrators on Monday. (KTVU photographer Alan Leong)
“We are appalled, but not surprised, at the attempt by a handful of pro-Hamas rioters to violently compromise our ability to operate as a diplomatic mission. They will not succeed,” Consul General Marco Sermoneta said. “The people who entered the lobby of the building where the Consulate is situated are the same people who have celebrated the rape, maiming, burning alive, and murder of hundreds of Israelis barely a day after October 7th.”
Sermoneta added that since Hamas invaded Israel that day, mobs of demonstrators have made campuses in the Bay Area “inhospitable” and “dangerous to Jews.”
The mobs also turned city council meetings into “despicable spectacles of antisemitism and mass-atrocity denial,” Sermoneta said.
“We thank [the San Francisco Police Department] for their rapid response and will continue to ensure that we provide all services as usual,” he added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.