Protests erupted in Tel Aviv on Wednesday night over police and judicial incompetence following a hit and run that killed a four-year-old Ethiopian child in May.
The Ethiopian community called out the government’s structural racism, saying authorities were being lenient towards the driver who killed Rafael Adana.
Ten were arrested and a police officer was stabbed. A protester was also injured after jumping from a bridge in an effort to escape police who were chasing him.
The protest drew the attention of prominent far-right Israeli politicians who focused on the stabbing of the officer rather than outrage pertaining to the child’s murder.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Stabbing a police officer is crossing a red line.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir shared Netanyahu’s sentiment saying: “Harming police and security forces is crossing every line and we will find and charge the attacker.”
The demonstrations began in an effort to raise awareness of Rafael’s murder; the four-year-old had sustained life-threatening injuries as a result of the crash on 6 May and died in hospital days later.
The driver, an elderly woman, justified her hit-and-run by saying that she “didn’t feel” the car hitting anything. She later gave testimony to the police about the situation and was allowed to leave the police station after being placed under house arrest.
No charges were brought against the 70-year-old despite pressure from Rafael’s family and activists. Critics have claimed that the police treated the case lightly because Adana was of Ethiopian origin.
Ben-Gvir: My rights are more important than Arabs’ freedom of movement
Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.
Spotted an error on this page? Let us know
Latest news
See all
