By ISABEL KERSHNERMAY
TEL AVIV — A protest on Sunday by thousands of Ethiopian-Israelis and sympathizers against police harassment and brutality turned by nightfall into a chaotic and unusually violent confrontation with the police in the center of Tel Aviv.
The demonstration began peacefully in the afternoon with protesters blocking main thoroughfares of Tel Aviv, paralyzing the heart of the city for hours as officers looked on and stopped the traffic. Later, demonstrators hurled stones, overturned a police vehicle and clashed with the police in Rabin Square. Officers responded with stun grenades and water cannons.
About 46 people were slightly injured, half of them police officers, and at least 26 protesters had been arrested by midnight, according to the police.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for calm, saying, “All claims will be looked into but there is no place for violence and such disturbances.”
The police said that agitators had stirred up the atmosphere. Many here compared the cry of the young, angry generation of Ethiopian-Israelis who came out on Sunday to the tensions in American cities like Baltimore or Ferguson, Mo., that have been roiled by friction between blacks and the police.
Raw Video: Ethiopian Jews Clash With Israeli Police (AP)
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Related:
Dozens injured in Ethiopian Israeli protest against police brutality in Tel Aviv (Haaretz)
Israel’s Ethiopians Protest in Jerusalem (The Associated Press)