Police arrested 11 people, among them a woman and a minor, after dozens became involved in a brawl in Lod late Sunday, November 8. The violence followed a march by far-right activists through an Arab neighborhood of the central Israeli city. Police rejected reports that a stabbing had occurred.
Mayor Yair Revivo said extremists arriving from outside Lod had sought to inflame tensions and were joined by around 20 boys and teenagers attending a local yeshiva high school. According to his account, after police dispersed the group, the local youths shouted derogatory slogans outside Arab residents’ homes. A violent confrontation followed, leaving people on both sides injured and arrested.
Revivo expressed anger at the outsiders, accusing them of provoking unrest and then leaving the city to face the aftermath. He said Lod had maintained relative calm since the violence that swept through mixed Arab-Jewish cities in May 2021. Urging Jewish and Arab community leaders to speak with young people, he said he would not allow a return to that period.
The mayor also said he had informed Shin Bet chief David Zini of the events and his concern about further escalation. Late Sunday evening, Revivo complained that he and police had spent hours handling the situation alone. He warned against the security agency and politicians becoming involved only after events had deteriorated.
Mordechai David and Ziv Baranes, far-right activists who are prominent supporters of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, shared Instagram videos from Lod on Sunday evening. The footage showed them moving through an Arab neighborhood alongside several religious youths during what they described as a “sovereignty march.” David claimed in one video that they were responding to an attack by Arabs on Jews in Lod.
Baranes linked the march to the unprecedented 19 seats secured by Arab parties in the October 27 Knesset election, claiming the result had emboldened Arabs in Lod. “We’re showing them who’s the landlord,” he said, using language associated with a campaign slogan of Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party. Other footage he posted showed youths chanting “Jews’ state,” shouting “out” in Arabic and holding an evening prayer in public.
Lod was among several mixed cities, including Acre and Ramle, hit by rioting during the 11-day Gaza war in May 2021, known as Operation Guardian of the Walls. Thousands of Arab Israelis took part in violent demonstrations, followed by violent Jewish counter-demonstrations, some incited by Jewish supremacist extremist organizations. Arab and Jewish mobs attacked passersby, and the unrest caused deaths and severe injuries.
Synagogues, a mosque, homes and vehicles were burned during that unrest, while residents faced stoning and looting. Police struggled for days to regain control. After Hamas’s October 7, 2023 invasion of southern Israel and the ensuing Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza, Israeli figures feared renewed communal violence. Tensions in mixed cities, however, did not develop into violence on the scale seen in 2021.
