Israeli police said it raised its alert level yesterday after two days of clashes between Arabs and Jews in the northern city of Acre during Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.
“We have increased our forces in the city,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. “We have also raised our level of alert throughout the country so that similar incidents do not occur again in Acre, or elsewhere.”
Two protesters and a police officer have been lightly wounded, while 12 people — Arabs and Jews — have been arrested since the first clashes broke out on Wednesday night, Rosenfeld said.
PHOTO: AFP
In addition, about 100 cars and 40 stores were damaged by Arab demonstrators, he said.
Rosenfeld said the unrest erupted on Wednesday night when an Arab motorist drove into a neighborhood where Arabs and Jews live, playing his car stereo loudly.
A group of Jewish youths assaulted the Arab driver accusing him of deliberately making noise and disrupting the sanctity of Yom Kippur, when most Jews in Israel observe a religious ban on driving.
“Rumors then spread out, namely from mosques, claiming that the motorist had been killed, prompting several hundred Arabs to take to the streets,” he said.
Clashes started again on Thursday, when rioters from both sides hurled rocks at each other and the police used tear gas to disperse them, media reported.
The conservative, English-language Jerusalem Post daily said the Arab protesters chanted “death to the Jews” while the liberal Haaretz newspaper reported the Jews chanting “death to the Arabs.”
Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday appealed for calm.
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