‘Civil war’: Israeli mayor laments ‘Kristallnacht’ as Netanyahu sends troops to Lod, gripped by rioting & clashes

 

“This is Kristallnacht in Lod,” Yair Revivo told the Times of Israel on Tuesday evening, referring to the notorious 1938 pogrom against Jews in Nazi Germany, and adding, “there’s been nothing like this in the history of Israel.”
 

Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which control the Gaza Strip, have fired hundreds of rockets at Israel since Monday, while Israeli jets bombed the Palestinian enclave. At least two Israelis have been killed and over 30 were injured in the rocket attacks, while Palestinian officials reported almost 30 deaths and more than 150 people injured in Gaza. 

Just before midnight on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that border battalions from “Judea and Samaria” – the Israeli term for the West Bank – will be redeployed “immediately” to “restore law and order in Lod and all parts of the country.” A state of emergency was declared in the city as well.

The PM made a late-night visit to Lod, giving a brief press conference there and later tweeting “I let forces flow to the city, everything will be done to restore order.”
 

Palestinian communities inside the green line (1948 borders) are erupting in support of #Jerusalem and solidarity with #Gaza. Clashes and protests are reported in Afoula, Lod, Acre, Galilee, and others
pic.twitter.com/1if6goOcQ5

 

— Belal Aldabbour (@Belalmd12) May 11, 2021

There were reports of riots in other Israeli cities, however – from nearby Ramle to Acre, Haifa and Nazareth in the north.

 

This is bad, the ongoing clashes in Israeli towns between Arabs and Jews are growing in some places; Lod, Ramla, Jerusalem, I saw also details about Acre, Nazareth, Haifa and the south, this is in Ramla a day after attack on a synagogue etc. Authorities not doing their job. https://t.co/sjaWcExkBg
— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) May 11, 2021

All of these places have been part of Israel since it declared independence in 1948 – unlike the West Bank and Gaza, which had been annexed by Jordan and Egypt, respectively, and came under Israeli control after the 1967 war.

The declaration of emergency in Lod is significant, because it is the first time Tel Aviv has invoked these powers against an Israeli Arab community since the military administration over them was lifted in 1966.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which deny Israel the right to exist in any borders, launched rockets on Monday after clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters outside the Al Aqsa mosque, on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. The protests were over a decision by an Israeli judge to evict several Palestinian families from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, in favor of Israeli settlers.