The police for the second night in succession clashed with dozens of protesters who who were loyal to the Arab residents of Jaffa argues, because tension in the Jewish-Arab coastal city continued to cook over the attempts at a Yeshiva in a large Arab neighborhood in to move.
Three protesters were arrested, including a minor suspected of setting off fireworks at the scene. Ordinary officers were filmed jumping on the boy and dragging him into an unmarked van. Protesters tried to stop the van from leaving the scene, prompting police to use riot gear to disperse the crowd. The minor was released from a nearby police station later that night.
The protesters were a mixture of Jaffa residents and left-wing activists from outside the city. They marched from Haj Khalil Square to a construction site in the nearby Ajami neighborhood that Orthodox Jewish residents were planning to purchase for a yeshiva.
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The head of the yeshiva, Rabbi Eliyahu Mali, was violently assaulted by some Arab residents on Sunday while visiting the site. The documented beatings immediately screamed, especially among religious lawmakers who demanded a fight against Arab crime in the city. The two suspects were arrested later that day and their detention was extended until Tuesday.
Israeli police arrest a boy while Israeli Arabs and left-wing protesters hold a rally on April 19, 2021, against right-wing groups taking over houses in Jaffa, near Tel Aviv (AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
Police charged the two with nationalist-motivated assault, although the suspects denied that the attack was driven by hate motives in their initial investigation.
Hours after the attack, a protest by mainly religious Jews took place near the proposed yeshiva site, exposing the violence against Jews in the city. At the same time, a counter-protest of local Arab Israelis across the street formed against the Jewish protest, with the words: ‘Settlers, go home’.
Police formed a human barrier between the two protests formed and attacked by rocks and fireworks thrown in their direction.
Israeli Arabs and Israeli left-wing protesters hold a demonstration on April 19, 2021, against right-wing groups taking over houses in Jaffa, near Tel Aviv. (AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
Jaffa, which was incorporated in Tel Aviv, is traditionally Arab, but in recent years many Jewish residents have moved in, drawn by new luxury housing developments. The gentrification – coupled with the presence of the yeshiva and the expansion of the community in Arab areas – fueled tensions in the city.
Mali is a former senior rabbi in the ultra-nationalist Ateret Cohanim Yeshiva, who wants to populate the Jewish residents of the Old City and other neighborhoods in East Jerusalem by buying properties from Arabs.
Local imam Bilal Dacha told reporters as the protest spread on Monday, scolding police action in the city and noticing how quickly officers acted to arrest the suspects in the battle of Mali while killing cases about Arab residents is unresolved.
“Dozens of people were killed and not a single person was arrested. It’s a shame! He shouted.
Protesters burned a flag of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality.
Two residents of Jaffa filmed the defeat of Rabbi Eliyahu Mali on April 18, 2021. (With thanks)
While protesters rejected the connection, Mali’s beatings came amid an apparent trend of assaults on visible religious Jews by Arab citizens who subsequently posted the material on the social media platform TikTok.
One such incident, which was widely covered, took place in the capital over the weekend, during which a Palestinian from East Jerusalem slapped two ultra-Orthodox boys on the railway.
