Knesset to address crisis over Ethiopian-Israeli shooting
The Knesset will hold a special session on Monday to discuss the June 30 incident in which 19-year-old Ethiopian-Israeli Solomon Tekah was shot and killed in Kiryat Haim by an off-duty police officer.
Twenty-five opposition Knesset members requested the special session, which will focus on “the ongoing national failure to absorb Ethiopian Jewry.” The session will take place despite the dispersal of the Knesset that initiated the September 17 election.
The Knesset’s two Ethiopian-born MKs, Blue and White’s Pnina Tamano-Shata and Gadi Yevarkan, are expected to address the session, as is Immigrant Absorption Minister Yoav Gallant.
Ethiopian immigrants and their supporters protested across the country following the death of Tekah, alleging systematic police brutality and discrimination.
The Ethiopian immigrant community suffered a blow in Thursday’s Meretz primary, when Tel Aviv Deputy Mayor Mehereta Baruch-Ron fell from the sixth slot she held in the April election to an unrealistic ninth slot. The Likud is also not fielding an Ethiopian immigrant in a realistic slot, after Avraham Neguise served in the 20th Knesset.
Meanwhile, the Knesset’s Education, Culture and Sports Committee will hold a special meeting on Monday on “implementing the law monitoring nursery schools.” The meeting will discuss recent incidents involving nursery school teachers caught on video abusing children.