Israeli
police blocked more than 200 far-right Israeli protesters from rushing
guests at a wedding of a Jewish woman and Muslim man as they shouted
'death to the Arabs'.
Several
dozen police, including members of the force's most elite units, formed
human chains to keep the protesters from the wedding hall's gates and
chased after many who defied them.
Four protesters were arrested, and there were no injuries.
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Bride Maral
Malka, 23, celebrates with friends and family before her wedding to
groom Mahmoud Mansour, 26, (not pictured) in Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv
Groom Mahmoud Mansour, 26, (centre,
facing camera) celebrates with friends and family before his wedding to
bride Maral Malka, 23
A lawyer for
the couple, Maral Malka, 23, and Mahmoud Mansour, 26, both from the
Jaffa section of Tel Aviv, had unsuccessfully sought a court order to
bar the protest.
He obtained backing for police to keep protesters 200 yards from the wedding hall in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion.
The
protest highlighted a rise in tensions between Jewish and Arab citizens
of Israel in the past two months amid a monthlong Gaza war, the kidnap
and slaying of three Israeli teens in June followed by a revenge choking
and torching to death of a Palestinian teen in the Jerusalem area.
A
group called Lehava, which organised the wedding demonstration, has
harassed Jewish-Arab couples in the past, often citing religious grounds
for their objections to intermarriage. But they have rarely protested
at the site of a wedding.
The
groom told Israel's Channel 2 TV the protesters failed to derail the
wedding or dampen its spirit. 'We will dance and be merry until the sun
comes up. We favour coexistence,' he said.
Protesters,
many of them young men wearing black shirts, denounced Malka, who was
born Jewish and converted to Islam before the wedding, as a 'traitor
against the Jewish state,' and shouted epithets of hatred towards Arabs
including 'death to the Arabs.'
Protesters hold
signs and shout slogans against the wedding of groom Mahmoud Mansour,
26, and bride Maral Malka, 23, outside a wedding hall in Rishon Lezion,
near Tel Aviv
Israeli police on Sunday blocked more than 200 far-right Israeli
protesters from rushing guests at the wedding of a Jewish woman and
Muslim man as they shouted 'death to the Arabs'
Protesters hold signs in support of
the wedding of groom Mahmoud Mansour, 26, and bride Maral Malka, 23,
outside a wedding hall in Rishon Lezion, near Tel Aviv
They sang a song that urges, 'May your village burn down.'
A
few dozen left-wing Israelis held a counter-protest nearby holding
flowers, balloons and a sign that read: 'Love conquers all.'
Israeli
President Reuven Rivlin, sworn in last month to succeed Shimon Peres,
criticised the protest as a 'cause for outrage and concern' in a message
on his Facebook page.
'Such
expressions undermine the basis of our coexistence here, in Israel, a
country that is both Jewish and democratic,' Rivlin, a member of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud bloc, said.
A Palestinian bride, Nasreen Abu Tuaima, who
lost her home during fighting between Hamas and Israel, walks through
the courtyard of a UN school during her wedding ceremony in Rafah in the
Gaza Strip
Palestinian bride Basma Abu Rigel, who also lost
her home during fighting between Hamas and Israel, is pictured at her
her wedding ceremony, along with two other couples in Rafah in the Gaza
Strip
Lehava
spokesman and former lawmaker Michael Ben-Ari denounced Jews
intermarrying with non-Jews of any denomination as 'worse than what
Hitler did,' alluding to the murder of 6 million Jews across Europe in
World War Two.
A surprise wedding guest was Israel's health minister, Yael German, a centrist in Netanyahu's government.
She told reporters as she headed inside that she saw the wedding and the protest against it as 'an expression of democracy.'
Arab
citizens make up about 20 per cent of Israel's majority Jewish
population, and the overwhelming majority of Arabs are Muslims.
Rabbinical authorities who oversee most Jewish nuptials in Israel object
to intermarriage fearing it will diminish the ranks of the Jewish
people.
Many Israeli couples who marry out of their faith do so abroad.
Derelict: A view taken of the destroyed and
deserted main gate of the Gaza Strip's former international airport in
the southern city of Rafah after it was bombarded in heavy fighting
Obliterated: A Palestinian boy makes his way
through the rubble of the destroyed terminal of the Gaza Strip's former
international airport as the death toll in Gaza rose above 2,000
Malka's father, Yoram Malka, said on Israeli television he objected to the wedding, calling it 'a very sad event.'
He
said he was angry that his daughter had converted to Islam. Of his now
son-in-law, he said, 'My problem with him is that he is an Arab.'
Meanwhile,
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday any deal on Gaza's
future had to meet Israel's security needs, warning Hamas it faced
'harsh strikes' if it resumed firing into the Jewish state.
With
a five-day ceasefire due to expire late on Monday, negotiators returned
after consultations to Cairo to seek an end to five weeks of
hostilities that have killed more than 2,000 people.
The United Nations said 425,000 people in the Gaza Strip have been displaced by the war.
The
Palestinian Health Ministry in the enclave says 1,980 Palestinians,
most of them civilians, have been killed in the conflict.
On the Israeli side, 64 soldiers and three civilians have been killed.
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