Thousands of Israelis of Ethiopian descent staged on Tuesday protests after a member of the immigrant community was shot dead by police.
On Saturday, 18-year-old Solomon Tekah was shot dead in the northern city of Haifa by an off-duty policeman. The policeman said he drew his gun while trying to intervene in a brawl between two groups of youths, who ended up turning against him.
A police spokesman said the officer who carried out the shooting had been arrested pending an investigation.
Tuesday protests took place at major road junctions throughout the country.
Riot police scuffled with some of Tuesday’s protesters in a bid to free up back-logged traffic. A police spokesman said at least 22 people were arrested.
The Israelis of Ethiopian descent, also known as Falasha Jews, had held similar protests since the weekend.
Protesters swore at the police and accused them of being racist towards whites. They rejected police allegations that the officer killed Tekah when he felt his life was threatened and said that if the victim had been white, the officer would not have killed him.
The police defended him by saying he “fired out of self-defense after the young men brutally attacked him.”
Police claimed that “the policeman was off-duty when he opened fire, and that he tried to intervene in a fight between youths when he was with his wife in a playground, and felt threatened.”
“After he identified himself as a policeman, the youths started throwing stones at him,” the police said, adding that he was taken to hospital after he was injured in the face.
However, more than one eyewitness insisted that the officer approached the boys and threatened them with his gun, adding that nothing provoked him to open fire.
The incident has sparked rage among the Ethiopian community, who accuse authorities of being racist against them.
