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Israel is preparing to deploy troops to quell the riots after attacks by right-wing Jewish gangs against Arabs have become the worst communal violence in the country’s recent history.
Clashes erupted as Israel continued its air campaign against Hamas, while the Palestinian militant group controlling the Gaza Strip fired at least 500 rockets at Israel overnight, about half as much as the night before.
“I intend to incorporate military forces to restore order,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday. “We have seen Arab rebels set fire to synagogues and vehicles and attack police officers. It is anarchy.”
He asked the Jews to obey the law: “I don’t care if your blood boils. You can’t take the law into your own hands. You can’t take an ordinary Arab citizen and try to lynch him, just as we can’t see how Arab citizens do that to Jewish citizens. “
He spoke after groups of right-wing Jews were seen roaming the streets of Arab neighborhoods, including Lod, Haifa, Acre and Jaffa, where they nearly killed a man they mistaken as an Arab. The incident was seen in live news. Arab-owned shops were vandalized.
Arab protesters also took to the streets, sparking clashes with Jews. They burned cars on Tuesday and assaulted Jewish residents of mixed cities, according to police.
Yair Revivo, the mayor of Lod, where most of the violence took place, compared it to a “civil war,” saying police had lost control. More than 400 people were arrested, local media reported, and more than a dozen injured.
Israel has positioned additional troops, including two infantry brigades and one armored vehicle, near the Gaza border. “No order has been to execute a ground operation by the Chief of Staff,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an army spokesman. “But military preparations are underway.”
Community violence has escalated after weeks of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli riot police at the al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem Est.
Israeli police stormed the compound at least three times in the past week, with rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades. At least 600 Palestinians were injured in the clashes.
Hamas entered the fight Monday by firing long-range rockets to Jerusalem while Jewish ultranationalists celebrated the capture of the Holy City in 1967 on the Western Wall, the holiest place of prayer in Judaism, which adjoins the mosque. Hamas had previously demanded that Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem stop harassing Arab residents awaiting eviction orders from Israeli courts.
Israel responded with hundreds of airstrikes in Gaza, including 600 Hamas military targets according to the Israeli military.
In Gaza, at least 67 people have been killed, including 24 children, women and the elderly, according to local authorities. Israel claims that at least 30 of these were Hamas fighters, including a handful of senior commanders.
The death toll in Israel was seven, including one soldier killed by an anti-tank missile.
Incoming flights were redirected from Tel Aviv to a smaller airport by the Red Sea, far from the reach of Hamas rockets.
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