Three people were injured during a rock-throwing fracas in Jerusalem on Saturday
afternoon.
The incident began when a group of haredim started throwing
stones at the Arab neighborhood of Shuafat in the capital’s northeast. Police
arrested three haredim, two minors and an adult, for throwing
rocks.
According to police, about 20 haredim gathered on the ridge above
the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood that looks down on Shuafat around 5:30 p.m., and
began hurling stones at the Arab neighborhood. One Arab was lightly injured when
a rock hit him in the head.
Border police arrived and immediately
arrested a 16-year-old ultra-Orthodox boy. While they were in the process of
detaining him, he attacked a female border police officer, and injured her
lightly.
Arabs began throwing stones in return at the haredim and injured
two haredi boys and damaged three cars.
Border police dispersed both
sides of the protest a number of times, only to find Arabs and Jews returning to
the site to continue throwing rocks over the course of an hour.
Jerusalem
police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said police were checking whether a specific
event touched off the incident, as there had been no rockthrowing at the site in
recent months.
“We will question the youth and see what the story is,” he
said.
Also on Saturday afternoon, extremist haredim who demonstrate
weekly on Nevi’im Street against the desecration of Shabbat brought their
protest up a notch when they started throwing bottles at police officers and
passing cars.
The bottle-throwers did not injure any officers or damage
any cars. Police arrested three demonstrators.
The demonstrators want the
city to close Nevi’im Street to cars on Shabbat, saying it passes through an
ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. The city says cars need an alternative to Jaffa
Road that was closed to traffic when the light rail was built.