Angry Arab-Israeli protesters march in streets after shooting
12 Nov 2014 4:59 AM IST
Shops, schools and businesses were shuttered in Arab towns and villages where a general strike was observed over Saturday’s killing of a 22-year-old in Kfar Kana near the northern city of Nazareth.
In the town on Sunday mounted police dispersed masked protesters who hurled stones and fireworks, blocked streets with burning tyres and waved Palestinian flags.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that 22 people were arrested, among them minors.
Kheir Hamdan was shot after he attacked a police vehicle with a knife as officers tried to arrest a relative.
Police say the officers fired warning shots until they felt their lives were threatened, when they aimed directly at him.
Relatives say Hamdan was killed ‘in cold blood’, with CCTV images apparently contradicting the official version.
In the video he is seen banging on a police van window with a knife before starting to run off.
Then a uniformed officer gets out of the vehicle’s back door and fires his handgun at Hamdan, who falls to the ground.
Officers then drag his body into the vehicle by one arm. Israel’s attorney general on Sunday convened an emergency meeting on the incident, hearing initial reports from the police internal affairs division, a justice ministry statement said, adding that the inquiry would continue. The incident came as Israel struggled to cope with a wave of unrest which has gripped annexed east Jerusalem
for more than four months, with police facing off against youths almost nightly.
Arab students protested the Kafr Kana killing Sunday in Jerusalem, the northern port city of Haifa and in Beersheva in southern Israel’s Negev desert. In the northern Arab town of Umm al-Fahm, about 250 people rallied, among them firebrand Islamic cleric Raed Salah, an AFP photographer said.
Stones were hurled at a bus on the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway alongside the Arab village of Abu Ghosh, police said.
In strife-torn east Jerusalem, clashes raged in Shuafat refugee camp for a fifth straight day as masked youths held running battles with Israeli border police, an AFP correspondent said.
Elsewhere in east Jerusalem, masked Palestinians hurled petrol bombs at police in A-Tur and
threw stones in Issawiya, with police responding with ‘riot dispersal means’ in both cases, police statements said.
In the town on Sunday mounted police dispersed masked protesters who hurled stones and fireworks, blocked streets with burning tyres and waved Palestinian flags.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said that 22 people were arrested, among them minors.
Kheir Hamdan was shot after he attacked a police vehicle with a knife as officers tried to arrest a relative.
Police say the officers fired warning shots until they felt their lives were threatened, when they aimed directly at him.
Relatives say Hamdan was killed ‘in cold blood’, with CCTV images apparently contradicting the official version.
In the video he is seen banging on a police van window with a knife before starting to run off.
Then a uniformed officer gets out of the vehicle’s back door and fires his handgun at Hamdan, who falls to the ground.
Officers then drag his body into the vehicle by one arm. Israel’s attorney general on Sunday convened an emergency meeting on the incident, hearing initial reports from the police internal affairs division, a justice ministry statement said, adding that the inquiry would continue. The incident came as Israel struggled to cope with a wave of unrest which has gripped annexed east Jerusalem
for more than four months, with police facing off against youths almost nightly.
Arab students protested the Kafr Kana killing Sunday in Jerusalem, the northern port city of Haifa and in Beersheva in southern Israel’s Negev desert. In the northern Arab town of Umm al-Fahm, about 250 people rallied, among them firebrand Islamic cleric Raed Salah, an AFP photographer said.
Stones were hurled at a bus on the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway alongside the Arab village of Abu Ghosh, police said.
In strife-torn east Jerusalem, clashes raged in Shuafat refugee camp for a fifth straight day as masked youths held running battles with Israeli border police, an AFP correspondent said.
Elsewhere in east Jerusalem, masked Palestinians hurled petrol bombs at police in A-Tur and
threw stones in Issawiya, with police responding with ‘riot dispersal means’ in both cases, police statements said.
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