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The northern Israeli town of Acre was quiet on Sunday
JERUSALEM (CNN) — The northern Israeli town of Acre was quiet on Sunday after four days of Arab-Jewish rioting, sparked in part by unsubstantiated rumors.
Four days of violence have gripped the northern Israeli town of Acre.
While the violence has subsided, there are still worries that the rioting could reignite at any moment.
Acre is one of a handful of inter-ethnic towns in Israel, consisting of 70 percent Jewish Israelis and about 30 percent Arab Israelis.
Rioting broke out Wednesday night after an Arab motorist entered a Jewish neighborhood on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish religion. Jewish residents confronted the driver and a fistfight broke out, according to Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld.
A rumor spread among Acre’s Arab residents that the driver had been killed and that prompted calls from some local mosques to avenge his reported death, Rosenfeld said.
Hundreds of Arab youths rioted in Acre’s Jewish neighborhood causing extensive damage to cars and shops in the area. Israeli police forcefully dispersed the crowds using tear gas and stun grenades, Rosenfeld said.
As soon as the Yom Kippur fast ended, about 200 Jewish residents began to riot in Acre’s Arab neighborhood. Police used force to disperse the rioters arresting some of them, Rosenfeld said.
Leaders on both sides called on the residents to restore calm, however those calls went unheeded and riots broke out again on Friday.
Two apartments belonging to Arab residents were torched by the Jewish rioters. Police separated the rioters throughout Saturday, however the rioting erupted again that night.
Rosenfeld said that police forces have been deployed throughout the town in large numbers to try and stop further rioting. So far, 54 of the rioters have been arrested
Arabs Stone Jewish Baby in Akko, Hamas Calls for Solidarity
Arabs and Jews battled each other Saturday night after several hours of quiet tension that gripped the ancient city. Police dispersed both sides while Arab and Jewish leaders met to try to find ways to restore calm to the city.
Mayor accepts condemnation
Three Jews, including a baby, suffered injuries by rock-throwing Arabs who attacked Hasidim who were dancing after the Sabbath. Akko city officials said that police arrived at the scene but did not immediately act to restrain the Arabs and instead pushed back the Jews with water hoses. Jews protesting the Arab violence firebombed one Arab apartment.
Police during the day staved off a violent confrontation between several hundred angry Jews and Arabs following the Yom Kippur eve disturbance by an Arab driver who drove into a Jewish neighborhood.
Eyewitnesses contradicted the Arab driver’s claim that he respected the sanctity of Yom Kippur by driving quietly into the neighborhood on the evening of Yom Kippur. He inexplicably told reporters that his radio was turned off, while Jews in the neighborhood said it was blaring and that he drove at such a high speed that people were afraid he intended to run them over in a repeat of similar terrorist attacks in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.
Arab leaders condemned the driver for disregarding the sanctity of the holy day, but Hamas leaders called on Gaza Arabs to march in solidarity to “reveal the true face of the Israeli oppression against Palestinians in Acre and in all the Palestinian cities.”
Hamas called on Gaza Arabs to march in solidarity to “reveal the true face of the Israeli oppression against Palestinians in Acre and in all the Palestinian cities.
De facto Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniyeh’s spokesman said that the anger by “Jewish settlers” in Akko “should serve as a wake-up alarm to those who are betting on reaching peace with an occupation that rejects everything Palestinian or Arab.” Spokesman Taher al-Nono accused “extremist Jewish settlers [in Akko] of acts of terror that could be the start of the final phase of ethnic cleansing of the 1948-occupied Palestine.” He referred to the city as “occupied in 1948.”
Arab and Jewish leaders in the city of 50,000 have boasted in the past about coexistence in the ancient port city, and Arab community leaders made a point to condemn the Arab driver, regardless of his behavior. They said he should have found a different way to arrive at the predominantly Jewish neighborhood.
Jews stoned his car, prompting other Arabs to drive to the neighborhood at high speed while a busload of Arabs arrived and went on a rampage, wielding knives, axes and truncheons and damaging more than 150 stores and cars.
More than 700 policemen guarded the city on the Sabbath and staved off a violent confrontation between 300-400 angry Jews and masked Arabs. Earlier, two Arab residences were torched.
More than 700 policemen guarded the city on the Sabbath and staved off a violent confrontation between 300-400 angry Jews and masked Arabs.
Despite the calls for calm, 20 Arabs protested in Haifa and waved Palestinian Authority flags while Jews in neighboring Akko were trying to repair the damage from the Arab riots. Mordechai Shamilashvilo, the owner of a pizzeria, told the Toronto Star, “Five years ago, there was some trouble, but not like this.”
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter (Kadima) promised to arrest rioters and inciters and to investigate reports that calls for violence against Jews were heard in Arab mosques in the city.
Akko Arab Sami Hawary, who is active in coexistence efforts, told Reuters, “The tension is very high here, things are on a knife-edge.”
Akko has suffered a decline in tourist traffic since the Oslo War (second Intifada) that broke out eight years ago.
Several Jewish merchants have begun an SMS campaign calling on Jews to boycott Arab businesses. A similar protest action began after the Oslo War began eight years ago.
Akko riots resume, mayor demands firmer police hand
Violence threatens to paralyze city’s streets for fourth consecutive night since Yom Kippur, Mayor Lankry rejects gesture of condemnation from Arab leaders, demands police take action to end ongoing public disturbance
The series of violent riots that erupted on Yom Kippur evening in Akko resumed on Saturday evening for the fourth consecutive day. As night fell the clashes between the city’s Jewish and Arab residents erupted once more, with both sides hurling rocks towards the others’ homes and businesses.
Police already deployed in the city are working to disperse the crowd.
However Akko Mayor Shimon Lankry is less than impressed with their efforts. “If police employ a heavy-handed approach, the riots in
Akko would be over very quickly,” he said following a meeting with police brass earlier in the evening. Police Commissioner Dudu Cohen and Commander Shimon Koren, who heads the force’s northern district, vowed to take a firm stance against the rioters.
But Lankry said the police have it wrong. “They have this erroneous belief that there shouldn’t be too many arrests. Only 30 people have been taken into custody since the riots began, that’s just not enough.
Terror groups call for 3rd intifada
slamic Jihad, PRC say events in Akko will lead to ‘Palestinian attack from within’, call on all Palestinians to take to streets in solidarity with Akko Arabs
The Islamic Jihad movement called on Friday for Palestinians to take to the streets in solidarity with the Arabs of Akko and Arabs in Israel, in general, “due to the racist aggression and brutality of the occupation and the bullying of the settlers.”
“The extreme Jewish attacks and the crimes of the settlers during recent days are a manifestation of the brutality of the occupation and its racism, in Akko and in other Palestinian villages in occupied Palestine,” said the group’s spokesman Walid Hilam.
He called on Akko’s Arab residents to continue to fight and remain unified in the fact of aggressive behavior and to hold on to their lands in the face of an alleged Zionist plot to relocate them, as occurred in 1948.
“What is happening is a predecessor to a third intifada, which the Palestinians living within Palestine that has been occupied since 1948 will lead, because of the consistent aggression against them, their homes and their lands and the policy that keeps them oppressed,” he said.
Abu Abir, the spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), also referred to the riots in Akko, saying that “the attacks on Palestinians in Akko demonstrate the distress of the Zionists and demonstrate that the next battle will be across all areas of Palestine.”
“This struggle shows that Palestine that was conquered in 1948 was never separate from the Palestine of 1967. We are all one people, we are all against the occupation, and we are all fighting to free Palestine. All of Palestine,” he added.
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