By Alternative Information Center (AIC)
Hundreds of protestors living in Palestinian towns within Israel have been met with violent crowd control and dispersion methods used by police in an attempt to prevent demonstrations, which have been gathering momentum in the last three days.
Demonstrations spread across the country in protest of the abduction and murder of Palestinian child Mohammad Abu Khdeir, who was burned to death by Israeli extremists in response to the kidnapping and murder of three Israelis last month, as well as the ongoing onslaught of attacks against Gaza and Israel’s racist policies in the area as a whole.
As of Monday evening, 277 Palestinian citizens had been arrested, 110 of whom were minors. The arrests were carried out during dawn raids as part of a search operation by Israeli forces in many Palestinian towns; arrested individuals were primarily charged with breaching public order and participating in illegal demonstrations. It is reported that Israeli courts will consider police requests to extend the detention of Palestinian youth arrested in the clashes and that 50 demonstrators were due to appear in court yesterday.
Middle East Monitor reported numerous clashes between Palestinian citizens of Israel and Israeli forces: Demonstrations took place in Nazareth, Kafr Kanna, Arraba, Deir Hanna, Al-Muthalath, Shefa Amr, Taybeh, Baqa Al-Gharbiya, Tira, Jaffa, Exsal, Freidis, Jisr Az-Zarqa, Hura, Tel As-Sabi, Lakiya and Arara.
In Nazareth, it was reported that Mayor Ali Salam urged demonstrators to return home. A day earlier he had expressed his opposition to the demonstrations, citing that commerce, economy and tourism in the city could be damaged as a result. He further criticised leadership of the demonstrations, although his comments were met with scorn by several local Arab politicians. The Nazareth chapter of the National Democratic Assembly, a secular Arab-nationalist party with three seats in the Knesset, called his comments “miserable” and “dangerous,” and demanded an apology. Hadash, the communist front with four parliament members, condemned Salam for exonerating the Netanyahu government and “blaming Arab leaders for what had happened.”
Hanin Zoabi, an MK who lost Nazareth’s municipal elections to Salam last year, called his comments “irresponsible and unpatriotic for a person wishing to fulfill his official leadership role toward his city.”
“This is Israeli language, not Palestinian language,” she wrote on her Facebook page on Sunday, “and we will never recognize it as Palestinians.”
It is speculated that the clashes may escalate further as Israeli forces continue to operate with violence and aggression in the West Bank and Gaza. The situation for Palestinians living within Israel is different, but they also suffer daily the effects of Israel’s racist policies; unemployment rates are high, many live under the poverty line and their identity as Palestinians is not recognised.
The wave of continuing protests in both Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory reveal increasing frustration and righteous anger at the policies and practices of Israel, and that events and people in Palestinian towns within Israel are intimately connected to the people and events unfolding in the West Bank and Gaza.
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8 July 2014