Netanyahu declares ‘state of emergency’ in Lod as violent Arab mobs torch city, threaten Jews

It has been reported that Arab rioters are firing at Israeli forces with automatic weapons.

By World Israel News Staff and AP

Violent Arab rioters torched portions of the Israeli city of Lod while threatening Jewish residents.

Israel’s Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai said “we have not seen clashes like these between Jews and Arabs like we are seeing now.”

It has been reported that Arab rioters are firing at Israeli forces with automatic weapons.

Israel’s Channel 20 interviewed eyewitnesses, including former Israeli lawmaker Amit Halevy, who called what he saw in Lod nothing short of “war.”

According to Halevy, there are not nearly enough police, and Arab gangs are trying to break into Jewish houses. He called for the army to be sent in.

According to one of Channel 20’s reporters, Jews are taking down mezuzot from their doors to avoid being attacked.

Halevy called for the city to be blocked off after his car was almost hit with Molotov cocktails, as Arabs set fire to cars and stores throughout the city.

Arabs launched the rioting on Tuesday night after even more violent protests the previous night during which “Muslim mobs attacked Jewish targets” in Lod “in an apparent show of solidarity with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, leaving behind scenes reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s,” TPS reported.

On Tuesday, police fired tear gas and stun grenades after mourners threw rocks at officers during the funeral of an Arab man allegedly shot to death by a Jewish resident the night before. Thousands took part in the funeral, and the crowd set fire to a patrol car, a bus and a motorcycle.

Two police officers were injured.

On Monday and Tuesday, terrorists in Gaza also launched hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilians, killing three and wounding scores of other, including a five-year-old girl.

Israel responded with around 130 strikes on terror targets in Gaza, demolishing a 12-story building that housed the offices of top Hamas officials. Israeli drones fired a series of warning shots at the roof to give people time to leave the building before it was destroyed. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

At midday, an airstrike hit a building in central Gaza City, and the Islamic Jihad terror group confirmed that the strike killed three of its commanders.

Arabs launched the current wave of violence in Jerusalem to coincide with the start of the Muslim month of Ramadan in mid-April.

Over the weekend, confrontations erupted at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which sits on top of the Jewish people’s holiest site, the Temple Mount.