The rare emergency declaration in the central Israeli city prompted the urgent dispatching of several Border Police companies to work to restore order.
A state of emergency hands police officers more authority and freedom to operate in the locality where it was declared. They can close off areas of the city, enter any place to carry out their duties, and employ “reasonable force” to compel civilians to obey their orders.
Some Lod residents said power was cut in their homes and Molotov cocktails were thrown through their windows, Channel 12 news reported late Tuesday, and police acknowledged having to escort some residents from a community center to their homes as Arab mobs marauded in the streets.
A local man, 56, was seriously hurt when a rock slab hit his car, and was hospitalized. Another local resident was seriously hurt.
The mayor, Yair Revivo, said City Hall and a local museum were also attacked, and compared the situation to the Nazis’ 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom. “Civil war” was breaking out, he said, lamenting that decades of coexistence efforts had collapsed. READ MORE
