San Francisco News

On July 30, San Francisco's Two Embarcadero Center building reverberated with the din of clanging pots and pans as protesters marched through the halls of the bottom floor and called out the Boston Consultancy Group (BCG) for its complicity in the Palestinian genocide. They drew an image of a starving child and "bloody" hand prints on the ground in front of the building, driving home the point. A return demonstration at BCG was held on August 9.

Israeli settlers have murdered beloved Palestinian human rights defender Awdah Hathaleen, from the Umm Al-Khair community in Masafer Yatta of occupied Palestine. Awdah, who had flown to San Francisco International Airport in June 2025 for a humanitarian visit in order to share his story and experiences of living under Israeli occupation, was detained and deported back to Palestine, where he was murdered only weeks later.

On July 25, the Northern California office of U.S. Senator Alex Padilla in San Francisco was the scene of a large and exceptionally noisy protest as hundreds of activists armed with pots and pans called attention to the ongoing genocide and the starving of the people in Gaza. After a rally and chalking of the sidewalk outside the building, protesters marched to join an ongoing action at the offices of BlackRock.

On July 23, activists blocked the entryways of the global headquarters of Wells Fargo in San Francisco, shutting down the building. As part of Stop Billionaires Summer, the action was organized due to Wells Fargo's investments that have contributed to climate destruction, Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the funding of Palantir and deportations, the privatization of the US Post Office, and the funding of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Activists in Northern California are not waiting for court challenges to stop Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Protests are ongoing and have cropped up outside Tesla showrooms in Berkeley, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Corte Madera and Seaside, amongst other locations. The earliest of these happened on a national day of action on February 15. The action at the Van Ness Tesla location in SF grew to about a thousand people.

On January 13, demonstrators rallied outside the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco to protest the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Investors Conference which brought together capitalists from around the world who profit from denying health care. They delivered the message that "health care is for people, not for profit" and also connected the genocide of Palestinians to the healthcare system.

On July 24, Israel's Prime Minister came to the US and addressed a joint session of Congress. However, more than a dozen legislators boycotted the speech because they, as do millions gthroughout the world, consider him to be a genocidal war criminal. Throughout Northern California and the US, demonstrations continue to demand Netanyahu's arrest and that the US stop enabling Israel's military as it kills Gazans by the tens of thousands.

Students at UCB, Cal Poly Humboldt, Stanford, Sonoma State, SF State, Sacramento State, USF, UCSC and UCD joined students at colleges throughout the country to establish occupations in support of Palestinians. Outrage at Israel's attempted genocide in Gaza has produced a movement of encampments at Harvard, Columbia, Yale, MIT, NYU, UT Austin, and more. Police have arrested hundreds, and yet the protests persist and expand.

On May 31, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and Jewish clerics held a pray-in to demand that Senator Padilla stop supporting Israel's genocide of Palestine. Dressed in black, protesters, many with their small children and carrying effigies of killed Palestinian children, marched in a slow, mournful procession to Padilla's office's street. There they painted a large mural bearing a Papal message of peace while religious leaders addressed the crowd.

On May 11, a procession was organized in San Francisco to mark the two years since Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by an Israeli military sniper. There still has been no justice for Shireen, and this impunity has led to an unprecedented attack on journalists. An estimated 140 journalists and media workers have been killed in Palestine since October 7, with more arrested, injured, and missing.