Supporters of former US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders have set the Israeli flag on fire during a protest rally outside the venue of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
Sanders supporters joined up with several other groups, including Black Lives Matter protesters and pro-Palestinian marchers, in a protest Tuesday night that at times turned violent.
Dozens of protesters made it inside the Wells Fargo Arena where the convention was underway before law enforcement officers blocked the entrances.
The Democratic Convention has been hit with mass protests following controversy over the release of thousands of party emails by WikiLeaks which showed Democratic staffers favored Hillary Clinton over Senator Sanders.
The controversy led to the DNC chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, announcing that she would resign when the convention was over.
Many of the protesters Tuesday night sat in the middle of the media tent with tape over their mouths to symbolize their “silenced” voices.
“Since we arrived here, the DNC didn’t care about what our votes were going to be, and they already coronated Hillary Clinton and gave her the nomination prior to us actually being able to vote,” Raina Whiting, a delegate from Hawaii, told The Blaze.
“It’s a stance against the DNC to say that these are people who are part of your party right now who might not always be,” Whiting said of the protest.
“They do not support Hillary Clinton, they will leave and they will go to a third-party voice. And if they do that, Donald Trump will most certainly become president. The DNC should really think about the voices that are being suppressed here.”
At the event, Clinton officially accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for US president in the 2016 election. The former secretary of state is now the first woman to win a major party’s presidential ticket.
After Clinton was nominated, many Sanders supporters staged a walkout from the convention floor.