Pro-Palestinian protesters shut down three major bridges and a tunnel in New York City Monday morning.

Members from 10 local groups, including Palestinian Youth Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Writers Against the War on Gaza, coordinated the action to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a permanent end to the occupation of Palestine and U.S. aid to Israel. Monday marks just over 3 months since Israel began its siege on Gaza in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

Israel’s bombardment has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, local health officials say, and displaced 85 percent of Gaza’s population with almost half confined to Rafah, a small city in the south of Gaza Strip.

“We feel that it’s time for bolder and more courageous action,” Mon Mohapatra, a New York organizer at Monday’s demonstration said. “We hope this inspires others to act and to disrupt until liberation. We will keep working collectively until there is a permanent and immediate ceasefire in Gaza.”

Dozens of chanting demonstrators blocked entrances to the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges and to the Holland Tunnel, which connects New York City with New Jersey. The demonstration brought rush-hour traffic to a halt for more than an hour.

Some protestors at the four sites chained themselves together using materials like chicken wire, re-used tires and cement, which police sawed off before making arrests, social media posts show.

The New York Police Department and Port Authority arrested 325 demonstrators. NYPD Chief of Patrol said many protestors will face misdemeanor charges with a desk appearance ticket in lieu of summons.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams responded to the demonstration saying the right to protest does not give people the right to block bridges.

“The goal is to peacefully protest without doing major disruption to the city, some people are not just driving to and from, across our bridges to go to their place of employment, some of them are dealing with some real emergency-type issues,” he said.

Mohapatra said the disruption was meant to show commuters how “trapped” Palestinians in Gaza feel and were inspired by an April 1995 Bridges and Tunnels protest in New York.

“A lot of people today were upset at the inconvenience as they were going to work, that we were causing traffic jams in one of the busiest cities in the world,” Mohapatra said. “We say this to them: The inconvenience isn’t being caused by us. It’s being caused by the people waging war against the Palestinian people, by a Zionist entity financed by American tax dollars.”