Arab residents in Tel Aviv complain of police harassment in terrorist search

Abed Abu Schade said that as he entered his family's apartment building on Sunday evening, 20 to 30 members of the security forces were raiding the building with guns drawn.

By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON
AHMAD AMER posted on Facebook Monday this photo of the mess that police allegedly left in his Ramat Aviv apartment, after searching it for the fugitive Tel Aviv shooting suspect (photo credit: FACEBOOK)
AHMAD AMER posted on Facebook Monday this photo of the mess that police allegedly left in his Ramat Aviv apartment, after searching it for the fugitive Tel Aviv shooting suspect
(photo credit: FACEBOOK)
The intensive police search for Friday’s suspected shooter Nashat Milhem in Tel Aviv has led to friction with Arab residents.
Abed Abu Schade, a student living in Jaffa, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that as he entered his family’s apartment building on Sunday evening, 20 to 30 members of the security forces were raiding the building with guns drawn.
He said it seemed that the police were looking for something, but that they appeared not to understand that the entire building was occupied by the Schade family.
“The police then asked to enter my family’s apartment” and in the process entered a number of other apartments, he said.
“They knocked on doors with their guns drawn and with flashlights, scaring young children and the elderly,” he claimed, adding that “nobody showed any resistance and I fully cooperated.”
In one instance, he asserted, the police entered his uncle’s bathroom while his wife was getting dressed.
Schade said that he was roughed up and taken to the police station because he complained about the treatment during the raid. At one point, he asked the police why they were searching the building, and they responded that “you do not need to know.”
Schade and his uncle were arrested and released early Monday at 2:30 a.m. without any charges against them, he continued.
Schade is upset about the incident and says that his family has a good reputation and is not involved in crime.
MK Haneen Zoabi (Joint List) told the Post that the search for the alleged shooter of the Tel Aviv attack has led to “the persecution of Arabs, whether it is students in the dormitories or any Arab walking the streets.”
“We are also part of the conflict, we do sympathize with our people, and we also refer to Israeli occupation and terrorism, but this is not a justification to trample on our rights and racism,” she said.
“Kicks, illegal searches and curses of humiliation” are unjustified, she added.
In another incident, Ahmad Amer, a resident of Ramat Aviv, posted on Facebook on Monday about a mess the police allegedly left in his apartment after their search.
“Of course without any warrant – and this because we are Arabs,” Amer wrote next to pictures of the mess the police allegedly left behind.
“A doctor, an engineer and a manager in the stock exchange want to hide their terrorist,” he said.
“I am very mad and I have nothing to do with this issue, except to write a meaningless Facebook status.”