The mayor of Israel's Lod city pointed to a "civil war out of control," Israeli media reported late Tuesday, calling upon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to send military forces to handle the situation.
The central Israeli city witnessed fierce clashes with police after a funeral procession of an Arab Israeli killed by an Israeli settler.
VIDEO — Streets of Israel's Lod witness intense clashes between Arabs and Jews as mayor of the city says "civil war out of control," calls upon Netanyahu to send military forcespic.twitter.com/AVtSIKe2EF#PalestinianLivesMatter #PalestineWillBeFree #ApartheidIsrael
— DAILY SABAH (@DailySabah) May 11, 2021
Israeli daily Yediot Ahronoth reported two Israeli police officers in the city of Lod were injured in the clashes, which also saw a police vehicle set ablaze.
Hundreds of Arab citizens of the city took part in the funeral procession of their Arab kinsman, who was killed on Monday.
Israeli police said on Tuesday that they arrested an Israeli suspected of killing the Arab Israeli and seriously wounding another.
On Monday, thousands of Arab Israelis demonstrated in the northern cities of Haifa, Nazareth, Shfaram, and Tira in protest of Israeli policies in Jerusalem, where 98 of them were arrested by Israeli police.
According to the Times of Israel, the protesters blocked main roads and, in Nazareth, set trash cans ablaze in the middle of the street.
In Haifa, hundreds of demonstrators marched through the city's main thoroughfare to the city's German Colony neighborhood.
Earlier on the same day, the death toll of Palestinian civilians killed in Israeli airstrikes on blockaded Gaza Strip rose to at least 30, including children amid an escalation sparked by violent unrest at Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
10 children and one woman were among those killed in the blockaded Gaza that is controlled by Hamas and 152 people there were wounded, Palestinian Health Ministry said.
Two Israeli women were also killed by rockets fired from Gaza in response to recent Israeli aggression in the heavily-targeted coastal city of Ashkelon, just north of Gaza, said the emergency service Magen David Adom. The local Barzilai medical center said it was treating 70 injured.
Hamas' Qassem Brigades had vowed to turn the town "to hell" and rained down an intense volley, claiming to have fired 137 rockets towards Ashkelon and nearby Ashdod within just five minutes. Loud booms again rocked the town on Tuesday, where a rocket had ripped a gaping hole into the side of an apartment block, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporter said.
Over 90% of recent rockets from Gaza were reported intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, Israeli army spokesperson Jonathan Conricus said earlier.
Israel fighter jets and attack helicopters have carried out more than 130 strikes on military targets in the enclave, said Conricus. Israeli officials said they have killed 15 Hamas commanders, while the group Palestinian group Islamic Jihad confirmed two of its senior figures were also killed.
