WEST BANK (Dispatches) – A Zionist regime officer has reportedly said those leading the violence in the Arab communities “are mostly Shin Bet informants.”
According to a report by Channel 13 news, the comment was made in a recent high-level meeting at the occupying regime’s police headquarters.
According to the report, the police representative in the meeting blamed the Shin Bet spy agency for the police force’s apparent inability to deal with spiraling violent crime in the Arab sector and the recent surge in ethnic riots and violence in mixed Jewish and Arab cities.
“The criminals who are currently leading the serious crime in Arab society are mostly Shin Bet informants and in this situation, the police are bound because those informants, who enjoy immunity, cannot be touched,” the unnamed senior officer was reported to have said.
The remarks came days after five Arabs were killed in deadly shootings in the occupied territories in separate incidents, including an incident involving Yousef Jerushi, his wife Nawal and their daughter Rayan who were shot to death near the town of Eilabun in the Galilee.
On Sunday, Zionist prime minister Naftali Bennett described the violence in the Arab community as a blight that has been neglected for many years.
In early May, Palestinian protests broke out in the occupied al-Quds neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinians faced forced displacements from their homes by the regime’s occupation troops, as the regime pushed ahead with plans to build new illegal settlements there.
The protests soon spread to the al-Aqsa Mosque, the city of Lod, Arab communities of the occupied territories and the occupied West Bank, leading to the call-up of additional forces to some areas, as the Zionist police failed to control the situation within mixed cities for days, most notably in Lod.
Since the beginning of the year, 48 Arabs have been killed in the occupied territories in violent crimes. Over 110 Arabs were also killed and hundreds were wounded in 2020.
In a latest development, violent confrontations broke out following Friday midday prayers between Zionist police and residents, with a number of Palestinians wounded and arrested.
Zionist troops fired stun grenades, rubber-coated steel bullets, and tear gas canisters at Palestinian demonstrators angered by ongoing home and business demolitions in the area.
Tensions continue after Nidal Rajabe, his brother Fadi, and several other Palestinians from Al Bustan were released to house arrest for five days on Friday, after paying 500 shekels ($150) bail each.
The men were charged with assault when they resisted arrest after Rajabe’s butchery and another Palestinian home were destroyed by Zionist regime authorities using CAT excavators on Tuesday.