Protesters fill Rep. Sean Casten's office, forcing closure of office building

GLEN ELLYN, Ill. - Members of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network were at Congressman Sean Casten's Office Wednesday in Glen Ellyn, requesting to meet with the representative. 

Cell phone video shows members of the organization sitting in office chairs and calling on Casten to support a "ceasefire now" resolution that supports an end to violence in Israel and Gaza. 

Representatives from Casten's office out of Washington, D.C. said the group is exercising their right to peacefully protest.

Local staffers say that the situation has prompted the office building to close early for the day.

A police officer was on-site in the afternoon but left around 4 p.m.

"One of the things that we've been pressuring Congress people in Illinois and, including Casten and Schakowsky, and even the senators, Durbin and Duckworth, is that you know they've all expressed unequivocal support for Israel, and almost unequivocal condemnation of the Palestinians, and so we're basically telling folks right now with 9,000 Palestinians dead in the last three weeks, over 3700 of them children, 21,000 injured, over a million who have been internally displaced, this is, these are war crimes that Israel is perpetrating," said Hatem Abudayyeh, national chair of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network. 

Casten's representative also says that the group was informed that Casten is on his way to D.C. right now and wasn't at this office. 

We're told the group has been offered to meet with him once he returns.