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Lydd: Mixed Jewish-Palestinian city still on edge

The root causes of the unrest in mixed Jewish-Palestinian cities in Israel have not been addressed.

The minaret of the al-Omari mosque and St. George Greek Orthodox church are reflected in the broken windshield of a vehicle outside a synagogue in Lydd. [David Goldman/AP Photo]
Published On 9 Jun 2021

Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas agreed to a ceasefire two weeks ago that ended 11 days of an Israeli military assault on Gaza and rockets fired from Gaza into Israel, but the unrest in mixed Jewish-Palestinian cities in Israel remains.

The city of Lydd (Lod in Hebrew) is on edge. Israeli security forces guard its streets, weeks after Palestinian protests took place in towns and cities across Israel – from the Naqab (Negev) Desert in the south to Ramla, Yafa and Lydd in the centre of the country, to the “Triangle” region and to Haifa and Nazareth in the north.

The demonstrators were rallying in solidarity with Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, who are facing imminent expulsion from their homes, and against the Israeli storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which left hundreds of Palestinians wounded.

On May 10, the night the latest fighting between Israel and Hamas began, Mousa Hassouna, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was shot dead by a Jewish Israeli resident of Lydd, touching off over a week of violence, and the city was placed under a state of emergency.

Confrontations between hardline Jewish settlers and Palestinian citizens of Israel erupted; the former attacked Palestinian citizens in their homes and on the streets while rioters torched patrol cars, mosques, synagogues and homes.

Similar protests, fuelled by Palestinian citizens’ longstanding grievances over discrimination and lack of opportunities, quickly spread to other mixed areas across the country.

Palestinian citizens of Israel comprise about 20 percent of the country’s population and are citizens with the right to vote. But they have long suffered from discrimination, and their communities are often plagued by crime, violence and poverty.

A 2018 report by the Israel Democracy Institute noted disparities in Palestinian citizens’ representation in mixed municipalities.

Despite holding Israeli citizenship, rights groups have documented several dozen Israeli laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens across a wide spectrum of issues, including education, housing, political participation and due process. They are treated as second- and third-class citizens.

Although Palestinian citizens of Israel make up 30 percent of Lydd’s population, only 14 percent of municipal employees are Palestinian, with only four on the 19-member city council.

The city has not had a Palestinian citizen of Israel as deputy mayor in four decades, the report said.

For years, Palestinian residents of Lydd have complained of institutional racism, which fuels marginalisation and poverty.

A passing motorist heckles Palestinian citizens of Israel who were demonstrating, calling for justice in the killing of Mousa Hassuna, who was shot dead by a Jewish settler. Jewish Israelis attacked Hassuna's funeral the following day. [David Goldman/AP Photo]
Two Lydd residents were killed in recent violence: Mousa Hassouna, 32, who was shot by a suspected Jewish Israeli gunman and Yigal Yehoshua, 56, who was killed by attackers suspected to be Palestinian citizens. No charges have been filed in either case, and police say investigations are ongoing. [David Goldman/AP Photo]
Residents walk past the apartment belonging to a Torah Nucleus Jewish family that was damaged in recent confrontations between Palestinian citizens of Israel and Jewish Israelis. [David Goldman/AP Photo]
Palestinian citizen of Israel Amar Watad holds her 13-day-old son, Nidal, during a birth celebration at the entrance to her apartment building. About a third of the city's population are Palestinian, many of them descendants of the Palestinian residents of the city before most were expelled en masse from territory that was forcibly taken over to establish the Israeli state in 1948. [David Goldman/AP Photo]
Jewish Israeli resident Katya Michaelov, right, embraces her Palestinian neighbour, Obaida Hassuna, as she and her son come to pay their respects after Hassouna's son was killed by a Jewish settler. [David Goldman/AP Photo]
Participants in a youth programme that brings Palestinian citizens of Israel and Jewish settlers together to talk with their Palestinian counterparts for the first time since the confrontations broke out in Lydd. [David Goldman/AP Photo]
A mural depicting Muslim, Christian and Jewish people decorates the side of a building in Lydd. The city is home to Muslims, Jews and a Greek Orthodox Christian community. [David Goldman/AP Photo]
A worker passes torched cars piled up in a lot after the recent violence. Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire to end 11 days of violence. But the mixed Jewish-Palestinian cities remain on edge. [David Goldman/AP Photo]
Malek Hassuna prays over the grave of his son, Mousa, who was killed by a Jewish Israeli settler. "If it's Jew or Arab, it's one blood," he said, expressing hope his grandchildren will live peacefully with their Jewish neighbours. "I want Lydd to go back to how it was 40 or 50 years ago, how it was with coexistence with Jews." [David Goldman/AP Photo]
Security cameras look over the Ramat Eshkol neighbourhood. Like Jews and Palestinian citizens in Israel, communities in Lydd are on edge as the future of peaceful coexistence in mixed cities remains in question. [David Goldman/AP Photo]