Minority Arabs seethe as bombing intensifies

Israel's Arab minority is seething over the death and destruction being visited upon their fellow Palestinians in Gaza. The war is placing Arabs in Israel, traditionally on the receiving end of discrimination and suspicion despite official proclamations of equal rights, under enormous stress as their state wages war against their people.

"The Israeli operation in Gaza arouses in me – and I think in every witness – revulsion," insisted Yusuf Sharaya, a butcher. He was on his way out of prayers at a mosque flying black flags of mourning in the lower income and predominantly Arab Old City area of Lod, or al-Lid in Arabic, just five minutes drive from Ben Gurion International Airport.

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A high school student who asked not to be identified added: "I am so saddened by watching people being picked out of the rubble. The people in Gaza are Arabs like us. They could be my brother, my cousin – anyone."

In dozens of Arab communities across Israel, including Lod, protesters have come out to condemn what is seen by many as a "war crime" on the part of their country's top leaders, rather than the act of self-defence against Hamas rocket attacks that the Jewish population perceives and backs.

Both sides remember October 2000, when 13 Arab citizens were shot dead by police during stone throwing and other protests that included the closure of major highways in the north of the country. Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency has now stepped into the fray in a fashion that reinforces questions among some Israeli Arabs about how democratic the Jewish state really is. According to Mosawa, an advocacy group for Arab citizens, the agency has summoning more than 50 political activists and leaders for warnings that there should be no unlicensed demonstrations.

In Lod, where a fifth of the population is Arab, the war has highlighted that Arabs and their Jewish neighbours inhabit different conceptual and emotional worlds.

Near Lod's municipal centre, in a kosher fast food restaurant *that was adorned with pictures of still-revered deceased rabbis, school administrator Itamar Gutman became angry when he was asked about civilian casualties on the Palestinian side. "I have parents in Ashdod and they had missiles shot at them today."

"I feel sorry for them," he said of Gaza civilians. "But what can you do? In all wars there are such losses."

The two communities are quite literally on different wavelengths, with many of the Arabs in Lod, as throughout the Arab world, tuned in to Al Jazeera broadcasts which highlight the death and destruction in Gaza. The Jews yesterday watched the Hebrew language channels that focused on Hamas missile attacks.

But in an Arab-owned clothing store, shop assistant Ahmed Saadi, who was born in Gaza, said as he watched Al Jazeera: "The [Hamas] missiles do not do anything at all. They are just metal without explosive matter.

"They are knowingly killing people who did nothing," he complained about Isreal's bombings. "It's like when you throw a water balloon – you know that not only the place the balloon hits is going to get wet."

He added that it was "no use" talking to his Jewish neighbours about the war. "They will all tell you the same thing: Hamas caused it by firing rockets." Still, he insisted, sentiment among Arabs is against the Israeli government, not their Jewish neighbours.

Some ordinary Jewish Isralies are clearly worried about relations with Arab locals. Sarah Maharat, an Ethiopian Jew, said: "The fear between Arabs and Jews was always there but now the tension has increased, there is more hatred. The Jews are afraid that the Arabs might do something."

Haim Shlomo, who works in a café, admitted: "The feeling here between Arabs and Jews is not pleasant. You are with them all the time and when things like this happen it makes problems. It creates a bad feeling between the two sides."

Seven days of bloodshed

424 Palestinians dead, including 100 civilians

4 Israeli civilians dead

0 Israeli military personnel dead

44 Israelis wounded

100 Tons of Israeli bombs dropped in single day

1 Senior Hamas leader killed

470 Palestinian rockets fired into Israel in seven days

8 Hours of electricity per day in Gaza

$34m Needed by UN to meet Gazan needs