As IDF jets bomb Gaza and Palestinian militants fire rockets into Israel, the city of Lod has erupted in violence its mayor compared to a Nazi pogrom. PM Benjamin Netanyahu is pulling troops from the West Bank to restore order.
“This is Kristallnacht in Lod,” Yair Revivo told the Times of Israel on Tuesday evening, referring to the notorious 1938 pogrom against Jews in Nazi Germany, and adding, “there’s been nothing like this in the history of Israel.”
Lod is a historic city about 15 kilometers southwest of Tel Aviv. About a third of its population is made up of Israeli Arabs. On Tuesday, as Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups fired rockets at Israel from Gaza and the Israeli military bombed the strip, Led descended into riots and violence.
“Every minute, a car or a synagogue or a school is going up in flames… Our new city hall was broken into and set alight,” Revivo told the outlet. “Synagogues are being burned. Hundreds of cars set alight. Hundreds of Arab thugs are roaming the streets… Civil war has erupted in Lod.”
Revivo said the local community was being incited by “Islamists” and called the riot an “intifada” – a Palestinian term for an uprising against Israel. The “Orthodox-nationalist” Jews in the city had guns and were willing to use them, he warned, calling for the government to declare an emergency and send in the troops to restore order, as the situation has become “too big for police.”
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