Five arrested in Gaza arms shipment protest at Travis Air Force Base

FAIRFIELD — Five people were arrested for blocking the north entrance to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield while protesting Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza on Thursday morning. 

Eight protesters stretched a banner across the narrow two lane road at about 9:00 a.m., holding back a line of commuters headed to the base that grew quickly with the morning traffic. 

“Travis Air Force Base is providing transport planes to bring weapons to Israel,” said protester Fred Bialy, one of the five who was arrested for blocking the road. “I feel it’s important to alert people who work at Travis so they know that the base is facilitating a genocide of people in Gaza by transporting those weapons.”

The protest was organized by the feminist anti-war organization Code Pink, Sacramento-based Youth 4 Palestine and Occupy Beale of Nevada City, California. The groups held a simultaneous protest at Beale Air Force Base in Yuba County.

Many commuters waiting in their cars while the entrance was blocked were dressed in military fatigues. One woman driving a large van said that she was transporting a Vietnam veteran to the hospital for a doctor’s appointment. “I am not upset about what they are doing, it’s just an inconvenience,” she said.

The protesters let her pass when she explained the situation.

Eight Fairfield police officers in protective gear arrived about 40 minutes after the protest began. They formed a line, walked up to the blockade and immediately began arresting the protestors who remained in the road. 

When officers arrested a photographer with the group, a woman with the protesters attempted to explain that he had not been blocking the road. The officer reached out to grab the woman’s hand as she backed away. A moment later, the officer lunged for the woman, knocking her to the ground. She screamed in pain and said that her arm was tender from being broken in a previous incident as two officers held her down and handcuffed her.

One of the group’s signs was a large painting of Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old cyber defense specialist with the U.S. Air Force who died on Feb. 25 after lighting himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., as a protest of U.S. involvement in the war in Gaza. 

“We know that when troops are sent abroad to commit crimes they are seriously morally injured and Aaron Bushnell was deeply troubled that he had complicity in the Gaza war,” said Toby Blomé, one of the protest organizers who was arrested in the blockade. “We are out here not just for people of Gaza we also don’t want our troops sent out to conduct heinous acts.”  

More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Hamas fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,139 people and taking approximately 250 people hostage. Israel retaliated with a bombardment and invasion of Gaza, where about 2 million Palestinians live. 

President Joe Biden has increased military support to Israel since the war began and frequent protests have erupted across the U.S. in response to Israel’s heavy bombardment that has destroyed much of Gaza. 

In December, 14 protestors were arrested for blocking entrances to Travis Air Force Base. On Wednesday, protesters blocked a security gate at the San Francisco International Airport for two hours. Traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge was stopped briefly by protestors in February.