Attempt to remove Israeli flag leads to banning two from town
The Israel Police issued a restraining order on Wednesday against two 18-year-old residents of the Arab-Israeli town of Jisr e-Zarka who tried to take down the Israeli flag from its mast at their local police station.
After detaining, imprisoning and questioning the two young men, police released the pair under restrictive conditions, including being banished from their town for 15 days.
Israel Police spokesman for the Arab sector Waseem Bader told The Jerusalem Post that the two men were staying in another village under the supervision of residents of that village who had signed a bail bond for them.
Asked whether the incident was connected to protests against the controversial Nation-State Law which caused uproar among many in the Arab sector, Bader said the circumstances of the incident were still under investigation.
At the conclusion of the investigation, the findings will be forwarded to the prosecution for review, to examine the formulation of an indictment for damage to government symbols.
“The police station at Jisr e-Zarka is working to make the police services accessible to the residents, in order to enable the normative law-abiding public to lead a normal and safe life, while any attempt to violate and harm that will be met with focused and uncompromising enforcement,” the Israel Police said in a statement.
The police station in Jisr e-Zarka – a town known to be crowded, impoverished and crime-ridden – was only opened in November as part of an effort to improve the situation in Arab communities, which have suffered from a historic lack of policing.
The plan, led by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, includes the establishment of 12 new police stations in Arab communities, and the recruitment of 1,350 new police officers. It also involves initiatives for social-police projects in the Arab communities and the recruitment of more than 300 Arab police officers in the villages of Jisr e-Zarka and Kafr Kama, which have both experienced difficult encounters with the Israel Police over the years.