Protesters Denounce Netanyahu’s Speech to Congress and Some Clash With Police

Thousands of protesters from across the United States flooded the streets around a battened-down U.S. Capitol before, during and after a speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday afternoon.

The elevated security around the Capitol echoed preparations for a presidential inauguration or the days following the Jan. 6 attack on the building in 2021. Starting Tuesday night, the Capitol Police erected a tall chain-link fence around the Capitol building and set up barricades on the broad avenues surrounding it.

The Capitol Police also called in reinforcements from at least six other law enforcement agencies. Officers from the Baltimore Police, the New York City Police and Department of Homeland Security law enforcement officers joined local D.C. police offers at the rally scene. Amtrak police and U.S. Park Police were at the nearby Union Station.

While the main protest site, west of the Capitol near the National Gallery of Art,was peaceful through the afternoon, smaller breakoff groups clashed with the police near the Capitol and outside Union Station, where they burned an effigy of Mr. Netanyahu and set fire to an American flag.

The Capitol Police and Washington Metropolitan Police arrested 15 protesters across the city: four near Union Station; five on the National Mall, after they crossed a police line a few blocks west of the Capitol; and six who protested inside the House galleries, according to the Capitol Police.

Hours before Mr. Netanyahu was scheduled to take the podium inside the House chamber, demonstrators rallied around a stage in the main protest area, near the east wing of the National Gallery of Art. Waving Palestinian flags and wearing kaffiyehs to symbolize their allegiance with Gazans, the protesters carried banners calling for a halt to American aid for Israel and an end to the war. Several signs called Mr. Netanyahu a war criminal.