By: Aryeh Savir
The High Monitoring Committee of Israel’s Arabs has announced a day of strikes on Tuesday, apparently in solidarity with the Muslim riots around the country and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The Committee announced the general strike to signal “identification with the Al-Aqsa Mosque and residents of Sheikh Jarrah” and against “the violent behavior of settlers in the mixed cities,” similar to objectives announced by Hamas and Muslim rioters across Israel.
The Committee called for the “end of the massacre in the Gaza Strip and aggression against Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa Mosque and Sheikh Jarrah, withdrawal of settler gangs and repressive forces from our cities and villages and solidarity with hundreds of detainees” arrested during the riots.
The strike includes businesses, schools and the public sector.
Arab activists stood at the entrances to the towns and asked the residents not to go out to their workplaces.
Hospitals reported that doctors and nurses did not arrive for their shifts, as well as bus drivers and municipal workers.
Rambam Hospital in Haifa sent a letter to its employees asking them not to take part in the strike and defined the failure to arrive at work as an illegal step.
The Palestinian Authority declared a similar “Day of Rage” and strikes.
The Betsalmo human rights organization has called on Israeli companies to fire Arabs who failed to show up to work in solidarity with the Muslim violence against Israelis, as the strike “is in support of murderers and synagogue burners.”
“Just as no one wants to work in a company with a sexual harasser so does no one [want to work] with a supporter of terrorism and incitement,” Betsalam said. “The strike declaration means support for terrorism.”
In the meantime, Muslims continued to riot on Monday night in cities across Israel.
In Umm al-Fahm, dozens of masked Muslims rioted and set fire to tires on the road leading to the police station.
In the Abu Tor neighborhood in Jerusalem, terrorists threw a pipe bomb at the balcony of a house. No one was hurt.
At least 10 synagogues were attacked and burned in the past week of Muslim riots across the country while 28 mosques were exposed as weapons storage sites, the data show.
Data from the Central District of Fire and Rescue show that from last Tuesday, 10 synagogues and government institutions in the city of Lod in the center of the country have been set on fire. No mosques were attacked or burned.
The data also show that 28 mosques were exposed as weapons caches, where rocks and Molotov cocktails were prepared and stored.
Similarly, 22 Muslim prayer houses were documented being used to incite riots against Jews.
112 Jewish homes have so far been burned in Muslim riots, compared to one house of an Arab family in Jaffa, which turned out to have been set on fire by Arabs.
No looted Arab homes have been reported so far while 386 looted Jewish homes were documented.
A total of 673 Jewish homes were vandalized and 12 Arab homes were damaged.
849 Jewish-owned cars were set on fire, as opposed to 13 Arab-owned cars.
Conversely, Jews who used weapons in self-defense were arrested by the police, while so far, no Arabs were arrested for the use of firearms, despite the injury of several Jews in shooting incidents.
Over 5,000 incidents of rock-throwing at Jews were recorded, as opposed to 41 such attacks on Arabs.
(TPS)
