Clashes between Jews and Arabs living in mixed cities continued to rattle Israel on Saturday, with protests across Palestinian cities giving way to concerns in Israel that the unrest would soon spill over to the West Bank.
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The leader of the Arab party Balad, MK Jamal Zahalka, said, "If the assault on Al-Aqsa and Sheikh Jarrah continues – the country will burn 10 times worse than what is happening now. This is only a promo for what will be if they dare to evacuate Sheikh Jarrah. Our young people and youth will take to the streets and will not stop until the occupation ends. We are not afraid."
Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai visited the mixed Jewish-Arab city of Lod, Saturday night.
Speaking to the press, he said, "We are deployed on an unprecedented scale in a forceful way in all of those hotspots with exceptional events. We will settle the score with the lawbreakers. Together with the Shin Bet security agency, we are doing the work, and up until now, we have seen successes," he said.
As for the inability of the police to take control of events as they unfold, Shabtai said, "Indeed there have been a large number of incidents. We weren't prepared to respond in small field units; today we are. We see the results in the field – things are calming down.
Shabtai called for political representatives to call for calm.
Alluding to Otzma Yehudit party head Itamar Ben-Gvir, he said: "There are officials on the political spectrum, every one of which contributed their part to what took place. I turn to all leaders as such to calm tensions and restore order."
Rioting in east Jerusalem continued apace, Saturday, as Palestinians marked Nakba Day, commemorating the displacement of Palestinian refugees during Israel's War of Independence.
Three attempted terrorist attacks and dozens of attempted arson attacks and riots were reported over the weekend.
Six battalions have been deployed to Judea and Samaria to back up forces stationed there in response to the events in recent days.
A terrorist attempted to run over Israeli soldiers at Ziph Junction in the South Hebron Hills, Saturday afternoon. The terrorist was shot and neutralized. No Israelis sustained injuries in the incident.
On Friday night, a terrorist armed with a knife approached Israeli soldiers in Nablus. The soldiers shot and neutralized the terrorist. No Israeli casualties were reported in the incident. Earlier Friday, an attempted attack was also thwarted in the Binyamin community of Ofra.
Firefighters worked to extinguish dozens of fires police believe were sparked by Palestinian rioters throwing Molotov cocktails and burning tires. A majority of the fires were located at access roads near military bases and adjacent to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
Shiko Bar Dov, commander of the Israel Fire and Rescue Services' Judea and Samaria Division, noted "a sharp increase in fires as a result of terrorist activity."
In Jerusalem, rioting was reported on the Temple Mount, near the Damascus Gate in the Old City, as well as several neighborhoods in the east of the city.
Dozens rioted at the Neve Yaakov – Beit Hanina Junction, Friday afternoon, attacking Israeli cars. Police officers, who also came under attack, used riot control measures, including water cannons, to disperse the crowds.
On the Temple Mount, rioters threw rocks at police officers stationed at one of the entrances to the site, Friday afternoon. Police, who managed to push the crowd back into the Temple Mount, arrested two suspects involved in the rioting after Friday prayers.
Also on Friday afternoon, Arabs rioted at the Old City's Damascus Gate. Dozens threw rocks at the police. Four were arrested.
Rioters started a bushfire when they threw Molotov cocktails at Jerusalem's Hebron Road. Five Arabs were arrested on suspicion of firing a cap gun at worshippers at a synagogue on Bar-Lev Boulevard. In the At-Tor neighborhood, situated on the Mount of Olives, rioters set a police cruiser on fire.
Dozens of rioters were arrested in the neighborhoods of Issawiya, Beit Safafa, and Ras al-Amud over the weekend.
Some 15,000 police officers, including special units, have been working around the clock to restore security at friction points across the country.
Since the riots broke out, over 900 suspects – of them 150 Jews and 600 Arab, have been arrested.
Around 265 officers have been moderately injured in the rioting, and the Israel Police's emergency hotline (100 from any Israeli phone) has received around 154,000 calls about some 40,000 incidents.
Working on a tip, Border Police officers in Lod discovered a loaded Carlo submachine gun, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks in a search of an apartment in the city over the weekend. Forty-three suspects were arrested on suspicion of rioting.
While the intensity of the rioting has decreased over the past days, attempts to harm apartments and people with pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails, and live gunfire were ongoing.
In a particularly disturbing incident, Saturday, police discovered 15 Molotov cocktails and a gallon of fuel, believed to have been hidden for future use in rioting in one of the city's mosques after receiving a tip.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with security forces and municipality officials in a visit to the city, Friday.
Speaking to the press, he said, "What is happening in Israeli cities is very grave. Groups of rioters from the Arab public are going out and attacking Jews for being Jewish. It's not all of the Arab public, and it's not a majority of the Arab public, but it is a significant minority. From our standpoint, this is terrorism. That's how we will treat it."
In Jaffa, meanwhile, police arrested 19 individuals on suspicion of rioting after they were found to be carrying weapons.
A 19-year-old soldier in civilian clothing is in moderate condition after his car was blocked by rioters, who threw him to the floor and proceeded to beat him up over the weekend.
In another incident, two men on motorcycles beat a man who was returning to his Jaffa home after finishing his shift at a restaurant in the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Neve Tzedek. The two suspects fled the scene.
Elsewhere in Jaffa, the car of Labor MK Efrat Rayten was torched overnight. It remains unclear whether the vandals who set the car on fire knew it belonged to an MK.
Also in Jaffa, two Arab Israeli children were hurt when their family home, in the Ajami neighborhood, was firebombed. A 10-year-old girl sustained a minor head wound but her brother, 12, sustained burns to his face and upper body and is hospitalized in serious condition at Sheba Medical Center's Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.
While the girl has been released from the hospital, the boy is in a medically induced coma and is on a respirator.
While police initially believed Jews were responsible for the attack, the investigation has taken a new direction as they investigate whether this was a case of Arab rioters mistook the Arab home for one belonging to Jews.
In surveillance video of the attack, two men in hoodies can be seen approaching the site, firebombing the home, and then fleeing. Police confirmed they are investigating the circumstances of the attack, as several adjacent Jewish homes were also firebombed by Arab Israelis that night.
Meanwhile, in the north of the country, large numbers of Border Police, riot police, and patrol units were deployed to friction points in mixed Jewish-Arab cities.
In Acre's Old City, as well as central access roads in the Haifa and Western Galilee region, hundreds of Border Police and riot police officers were deployed to prevent clashes, rioting, looting, and vandalism.
Arab rioters torched the Acre Theater, a longtime symbol of Arab-Jewish coexistence in the city.
Hundreds of police officers secured a Haifa court, where the deputy leader of the outlawed northern branch of the Islamic Movement, Sheikh Kamal Khatib was set to be remanded. Dozens were arrested when clashes broke out between police and Khatib's supporters following his arrest.
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