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In Jerusalem, Sporadic Clashes Continue Into The Night
[IsraelTimes] Violent protests continued into the early morning hours of Sunday in Jerusalem as angry Paleostinian demonstrators clashed with Israeli police at multiple sites in the capital.The protests have been escalating for days, since the brutal kidnapping and murder last week of a Paleostinian teenager, which police increasingly believe was carried out by Jewish Lions of Islam in retaliation for the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teenagers on June 12 by a Hebron-based Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, cell. Clashes between police and protesters, nearly all of them young Paleostinian men, were reported in the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Kalandiya, Isawiya and A-Tur. A few protesters were tossed in the clink Book 'im, Mahmoud! late Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of injuries. Meanwhile, ...back at the bunker, his Excellency called a hurried meeting of his closest advisors. It was to be his last. They discussed the officers's efficiency rating system... reports of violent incidents throughout the capital mounted overnight. Firefighters were battling a blaze between Har Homa and the Mar Elias Monastery in southern Jerusalem that authorities believe was started by a Molotov cocktail aimed at Jewish drivers on the nearby road. In Sharafat, an Arab village near the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, some 200 demonstrators were clashing with police. A similar clash between police and dozens of rock-throwing Paleostinians took place in the Antonia neighborhood in Jerusalem's Old City. Also in the Old City, a Jewish woman was lightly injured when she was attacked by a group of Paleostinian men, who fled when her husband arrived and fired his gun into the air. Police said they were pursuing the attackers. A Molotov cocktail was thrown at a thoroughfare in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, and two grenades were hurled at security forces near Rachel's Tomb, on the road to Bethlehem south of Jerusalem. No one was injured in either incident. A Jewish vehicle was reportedly attacked by masked Paleostinian men near the contentious Maaleh Hazeytim neighborhood on the Mount of Olives east of the Old City. According to the Haredi news site Behadrey Haredim, some 15 Paleostinian men entered Yeshivat Hatfutsoth, a religious seminary on Mount Zion, on Saturday and threw stones into the seminary dining hall. The yeshiva's students responded by throwing chairs, food and boiling water at the intruders. Several Paleostinians sustained burns and expeditiously departed at a goodly pace, the site reported. "This is a precedent," yeshiva head Rabbi Avraham Goldstein was quoted as saying. "This is the first time something like this has happened on Mount Zion. We have good relations with all the religions in this place, and we hope the police will treat this incident with utmost seriousness." At least two Israeli buses were also pelted with stones on Saturday night, one in East Jerusalem near Mount Scopus and the other near the West Bank village of A'uja, just north of Jericho. In the Mount Scopus incident, the driver and two passengers sustained light wounds and were evacuated by MDA to the nearby Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus. In the second incident, the driver was lightly maimed and damage was caused to the bus and a nearby car. Paleostinians reported on Saturday night that dozens of Jewish demonstrators had entered the Arab neighborhood of Beit Tzafafa, in southern Jerusalem, and threw rocks at Paleostinian homes and vehicles. Police reportedly responded with crowd-dispersal weapons. Earlier Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with top security officials, Channel 2 reported, and instructed them to meet violence and unrest with a firm hand, adding that lawbreakers would be dealt with severely. In Nazareth, as many as 1,000 protesters erupted into the streets on Saturday evening in a rally marked by some outbursts of violence, including rock throwing directed at police and the Molotov cocktailing of a municipal garbage can. Rocks were thrown at vehicles driving on Route 2, the main Tel Aviv-Haifa coastal highway on Saturday night. No one was hurt in the incident. Police forces were deployed to the Galilee town of Taybe on Saturday to keep Road 444, which cuts through the town, from being blocked by protesters. Demonstrators nevertheless erupted into the streets in the evening, after breaking the Ramadan fast, lit tires on fire, threw stones at the entrance to the city and barricaded a handful of smaller streets. "There are only a few protesters lighting tires and throwing stones at the entrance to the town," one resident told the Hebrew-language news site Walla. "Most residents are in their homes, walking in the streets or sitting in cafes." Heavy rioting was reported in the Wadi Ara region of northern Israel, home to a large Arab Israeli population. Police said they were pelted with stones and responded with crowd control weapons in several incidents in the area on Saturday. Demonstrations also took place on Saturday outside Kalanswa, east of Netanya, following violent festivities with security forces early Saturday. Hundreds of people rolled their eyes, jumped up and down, and hollered poorly rhymed slogans real loud, hurled rocks and burned tires in several demonstrations in the area. Police arrived at the scene and, after calling on the demonstrators to disperse peacefully, attempted to break up the crowds with anti-riot gear. Roads in and out of the two towns were closed off by security forces. A police spokesperson said that officers would allow "any legitimate expression of protest, but any disorderly conduct will be met firmly and decisively." The mayor of Kalanswa attempted to calm Arab residents, calling on them to avoid rioting and leave the streets. On Saturday morning, a 20-year-old motorcyclist was attacked by demonstrators near the entrance to Kalanswa while driving along the road into the town. He was hospitalized in moderate condition at Meir Hospital in nearby Kfar Saba. The incident followed several attacks on Jewish drivers by masked men on road 5614 into Kalanswa, which was blocked due to burning tires overnight Friday. The masked men began asking drivers stuck on the road if they were Jewish. Two of the drivers who answered back in Hebrew were dragged from their cars and beaten. One of them managed to get back in his car and drive away while the other escaped on foot. His car was set on fire. A police officer in uniform was also attacked on the road. He escaped on foot and his vehicle sustained damage. Several Molotov cocktails were thrown at the Jewish village of Mei Ami in the Wadi Ara region on Saturday. Police were called to the scene. An unnamed senior police source was quoted in Israeli media on Saturday as saying that festivities in East Jerusalem and in Israel's Arab communities were expected to escalate in the coming days, with "more and more people joining the riots." Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said earlier Saturday that there would be zero tolerance for people who decided to take the law into their own hands. Aharonovitch said police would not allow violent disturbances to go unanswered and promised that justice would be served to "troublemakers." He also urged police to act responsibly and with restraint due to the fragile situation created with the discovery on Monday of the bodies of the three slain Israeli teenagers, Eyal Yifrah, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, 16, and the subsequent discovery of the body of the Paleostinian teenager, 16-year-old Muhammed Abu Khdeir, in a Jerusalem forest two days later in what is increasingly believed to have been a reprisal attack. On Sunday, Paleostinian officials reported that the autopsy of 16-year-old Abu Khdeir, conducted jointly by Israeli and Paleostinian pathologists, has revealed that the youth was still alive when he was set on fire. His funeral on Friday was attended by thousands and preceded and followed violent festivities with security forces in East Jerusalem which later spread to Israeli Arab towns, including Kalanswa, Tira, Taibe and Baqa al-Gharbiya. Police arrested 31 people in connection with the rioting overnight Friday-Saturday in which hundreds of Arab Israelis burned tires and clashed with security forces. Posted by: trailing wife 2014-07-06 |
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