Three Israeli Israeli men were arrested on Sunday night, police said, as clashes erupted in Jaffa at rival protests following a violent assault on a yeshiva head living in the mixed Jewish-Arab district of Tel Aviv.
Rabbi Eliyahu Mali was attacked violently on Sunday morning in an apparent hate crime while looking to buy an apartment to house Shirat Moshe Hesder Yeshiva. Two suspects were later arrested.
In response to the incident, a predominantly religious Jewish protest took place on Sunday evening near the site of the attack, denouncing violence against Jews in the city.
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At the same time, a counter-protest of local Arab Israelis formed across the road from the Jewish protest, chanting “Settlers, go home.”
With police officers forming a human barrier between the two protests, they were attacked by stones and fireworks thrown in their direction, police said in a statement.
Clashes between Israeli Arab protesters and police in Jaffa, April 18, 2021. (Screenshot: Ynet)
Images of the incident showed fireworks coming from the direction of the Israeli Arab protest.
Two police officers suffered minor injuries, police said.
In the incident early Sunday, Mali and his colleague were assaulted while going to a building in Jaffa to view the property. The two were surrounded by Arab residents in the area, who started shouting at them and ordering them to leave. When they refused and began filming the incident, the suspects began beating Mali and his colleague.
Mali did not need hospitalization for his injuries.
The photos posted online showed the rabbi, sixty years old, being kicked to the ground.
Two Jaffa residents filmed beating Rabbi Eliyahu Mali on April 18, 2021. (Kindness)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the “violent attack” and called on law enforcement to bring the attackers to justice quickly.
Right-wing lawmakers also strongly condemned the attack, calling it anti-Semitic.
“The state of Israel is not one shtetl in which Jews can be hurt, “Yamina party leader Naftali Bennett wrote on Twitter, referring to Jewish hamlets in Eastern Europe. “The severe and blatant violence against Rabbi Eliyahu Mali, the chief of the hesesh yeshiva in Jaffa, is a … national shame.”
Jerusalem’s Foreign Minister Rafi Peretz described the incident as “terrible” and urged police to bring the attackers to justice.
Jaffa, which has now been incorporated into Tel Aviv, is traditionally Arab, but in recent years many Jewish residents have been displaced by new developments in luxury housing. This gentrification fueled tensions in the city.
