Former UFC light heavyweight champion Jamahal Hill was trapped along with his team in the middle of a pro-Palestinian rally in New York City on Friday (Nov 10), the New Post reports.

Hill was in town to attend UFC 295 at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night (Nov 11), when his van with passengers Brian Butler, Robbie Lawler, and Cory Sandhagen was swarmed by protesters in Midtown Manhattan who were demanding a ceasefire in Gaza in response to the tumultuous military conflict between Palestine and Israel.

Taking to Instagram, Hill shared that he and his management team were trapped in the midst of the chaotic scene.

“[We’re] trying to leave downtown. Our bus is being attacked right now by something, some protest or something that’s going on,” Hill said in a video. “They’re throwing, they’re breaking our windows, and all this and that. … If any of my people down here downtown and you really got me … come get these people up off our bus.”

Butler, Hill’s manager, added on Instagram: “This could have escalated very badly. This was a sliver of a hair away from being catastrophic.”

“People were saying, ‘Go, step on the gas. Step on the gas.’ People started trickling over because we were at the very front,” Butler told MMA Junkie. “I think they were curious because it was a big Sprinter van, so they started coming up and putting their signs and stuff up on the window. Then they got a look inside and they could see it was UFC security in there, and they were like, ‘Oh, UFC people.’ Then they started saying stuff like, you know, just mob mentality stuff.”

During the melee, protesters opened the door of the van, but the driver was able to close the door before anyone else could enter.

The raucous protest reached Grand Central Terminal about a mile away before it was shut down by law enforcement officials.

Eventually, the NYPD and the UFC security guards cleared a path for the van to leave the intersection. They were forced to walk the rest of the way because the tires of the vehicles were slashed.

Their entire entourage left in the van and made it out of the scene

Hill, who is recovering from a ruptured Achilles tendon, was planning to attend the Jiri Prochazka vs. Alex Pereira matchup for the vacant light heavyweight title that he had to vacate following his injury.

Pereira defeated Prochazka for the vacant title with a second-round knockout.