Mashaal Calls for 'Third Intifada,' Israeli Arabs Declare Strike

Israel National News (Link) - Gil Ronen (December 27, 2008)

Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal called Saturday night for a "third intifada" against Israel, speaking from Damascus following the IAF attack on Gaza earlier in the day. According to Channel 2's Arab affairs correspondent, the strategy of the terrorist group is to ignite rioting in Judea and Samaria as well as inside Israel, with the aid of the Islamic Movement.

MK Yitzchak Aharonovich (Yisrael Beiteinu, "Israel Our Home"), a former Deputy Commissioner of the Israel Police, said Saturday evening that "the Israeli nation has a new opportunity to find out on which side the leadership of Israel's Arabs rests and to whom they owe their allegiance. The police must react with an iron fist against any kind of provocation on their part," he added.

Aharonovich was joined by his colleague at Yisrael Beiteinu, Dr. Uzi Landau, a former Minister of Public Security, who called upon the Israel Police to "immediately dismantle the mourners' tent put up in Jaffa by Arabs in identification with Hamas, and prepare to… prevent such provocations in the future." Police are preparing for the possibility of extensive rioting in northern Israel.

The Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, an umbrella group of Arab organizations, declared a national strike in the Arab sector beginning Sunday morning. Hundreds of Arabs who are Israeli citizens rioted in response to the IDF's operation in Gaza on Saturday. Arabs in Yafo (Jaffa) hurled rocks at an Egged bus. The bus was not carrying passengers at the time. Arab residents in eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods threw rocks at police.

Also in eastern Jerusalem, hundreds of Arabs attacked Israel Police and Border Police forces with rocks at the entrance to the Shuafat neighborhood. In a separate incident, several dozen Arab youths from eastern Jerusalem set alight garbage bins on Salah a-Din Street and were dispersed by police. No one was hurt and one suspect was arrested.

An Arab attempted to run over an Israeli policeman near the Old City of Jerusalem Saturday night. He hit the officer and injured him lightly in the leg. The driver was apprehended and is being questioned. In the Muslim quarter, Arabs threw rocks at Border Police. Police officers arrested four people.

Calls to block Route 65

According to Ynet, hundreds of members of the radical Arab Ibna Al-Balad movement demonstrated in the northern Arab city of Umm El Fahm and chanted a call for the "redemption" of Gaza "with blood and fire." Another demonstration took place nearby in the Kara Junction.

Arab members of the communist Hadash movement also demonstrated in Umm El-Fahm and Nazareth. In the mosques, speakers called for residents to seal off Route 65 which passes through the largely Arab Wadi Ara area, near Megiddo. Dozens of supporters of the Arab Ra'am-Ta'al party, which is headed by MK Ahmed Tibi, demonstrated against the operation in the northern town of Sakhnin. Arab leaders in Israel called the IDF attack on Gaza a "war crime."