By: Aryeh Savir
Israel’s police faced off with violent Muslim rioters in Yaffo who were protesting the city’s plans to build a hostel for the homeless over an old cemetery, and with Ultra-Orthodox protestors in Jerusalem who oppose the opening of a new country club in the vicinity of their neighborhood.
In Yaffo, the rioters conducted an illegal march while setting trash cans on fire and pelting the police with rocks and firecrackers.
The police responded with rubber bullets and stun grenades. Four protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct and the use of violence.
The riots, which have been taking place over the past weeks, were organized by a local Islamic society over the city’s plans to build a hostel for the homeless on a site that was used as a Muslim cemetery over 90 years ago.
The graves have been relocated decades ago for sanitary reasons. The site has been since used as a field by the Jaffa Muslim Football Club, and later by the British Customs for warehouses.
The issue was contested in court, and District Court Judge Avigayil Cohen authorized the municipality to proceed with the construction and ruled that “contrary to the principles laid down by the Islamic Council, constitutional principles are also important: the property owner’s property rights and the public importance of the project – erecting a building for the rehabilitation of street dwellers.”
In Jerusalem, members of an extreme Ultra-Orthodox sect marched on the city hall in protest of a new country club that was opening in the vicinity of their neighborhood in Ramot. They alleged Mayor Moshe Lion was “defiling their communities.”
A large police force on site fended off the hundreds of demonstrators.
Several dozen protestors held a similar demonstration in Beit Shemesh.
In other developments, it was reported that three members of the Arab-Israeli community were shot dead in criminal incidents over the weekend, bringing the total number of casualties in the community to 50 from the beginning of the year.
Samir Omaria, 53, was shot dead on Saturday night and four others were injured in the town of Ibtin in the Zevulun Valley. On Sunday morning Hussein Abu Dib, a 55-year-old resident of Kafr Qassem, was shot at a construction site in Petah Tikva. A 55-year-old man was shot dead in the Arab town of Tira shortly afterward.
The police arrested a 36-year-old man for the Ibtin shooting.
The Arab-Israeli society has seen a surge in violence in recent years, and at least 50 Arab citizens have been killed in criminal incidents since the beginning of 2020.
The Yozmot Avrahm organization said that this year’s homicide rate was higher in comparison to the 38 cases registered at this time of year last year.
36 of the murders were committed using a firearm, and in the last 30 days alone, six Arab citizens have been murdered.
The Knesset’s Research and Information Center presented a study last month showing that police carried out 51,128 criminal arrests in 2019, of which about 39% of those arrested were Jews and 61% were non-Jews.
Between 2015 and 2019, 80% of those suspected of committing firearm-related crimes in Israel were non-Jews.
The homicide rate in the Arab community in Israel has increased by 60% from 2016 to 2019, and in 2018, the murder rate among Arabs in Israel was more than eight times the rate among Jewish Israelis, a new study published by the Baladna Association for Arab Youth shows.
(TPS)
