By Alaa Rimawi
JERUSALEM
Israeli police have arrested five Arabs from the northern Israeli town of Kafr Kanna after fresh protests erupted in the Arab town over the Saturday killing of an Arab youth by Israeli police.
The Israeli police said in a statement late Monday that clashes erupted in the town, prompting the arrest of five Arabs.
Clashes had first erupted shortly following the shooting of 22-year-old Khair al-Din Hemdan, an incident that the police argued was self-defense after he tried to assault its personnel with a knife during a raid to arrest another Arab resident of the town.
The police had noted that policemen fired some rounds in the air at first, but had to shoot on Hemdan when their lives became at risk.
A general strike was declared in all Arab towns across Israel on Sunday in protest against the killing.
The clashes came as tension has been running high in the region since Israeli authorities sealed access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem after the shooting of an extremist Jewish rabbi in the city before reopening it hours later.
The unrest mounted further after Israeli forces killed a young Palestinian man suspected of shooting the rabbi in a raid last week on his East Jerusalem home.
Several Israeli parliamentarians have also entered the mosque complex in recent days, drawing the ire of Muslim worshippers and official condemnation from Arab and Muslim countries.
Groups of Jewish settlers, too, have forced their way into the site, prompting clashes between Muslim worshippers and Israeli forces.
On Monday, an Israeli girl was killed when a Palestinian stabbed three Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
The attack came shortly after an Israeli soldier was injured after being stabbed near a Tel Aviv train station by a Palestinian from the Askar refugee camp in the West Bank city of Nablus.
The attacks came a few days after an Israeli baby was killed when a Palestinian driver plowed into a group of Israeli pedestrians in West Jerusalem.
And last week, an Israeli police officer was killed in a similar vehicular attack in East Jerusalem.
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