Thousands of people took to the streets across Israel this weekend to demonstrate their solidarity with the victims of the West Bank arson attack on Friday and the stabbings at Jerusalem’s Gay Pride march the day before.
Nasser Dawabsheh, the uncle of the Palestinian baby burned to death in the West Bank village of Douma, told a large crowd in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square: "Netanyahu offers his condolences, but we ask the defence minister and the IDF to restore security in the village of Douma and in all Palestinian villages… we want this to be the end of the suffering of our people. Before Ali there was Mohammed Abu Khdeir, and we don't know who will be next. We want the fires to end."
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin also addressed the crowd. He said: "Flames have engulfed our country. Flames of violence, flames of hatred, flames of false, distorted and twisted beliefs. Flames which permit bloodshed in the name of the Torah, in the name of the law, in the name of morality, in the name of a love for the land of Israel. "
"On Friday, I visited the family at Tel Hashomer hospital," he continued. "I visited, silently, ashamed, ridden with dread for the power of hatred. Ashamed that in a country which has known the murder of Shalhevet Pass, of the Fogel family, of Adele Biton, ofEyal, Gil-ad, Naftali and Muhammad Abu Khdeir, there are still those who do not hesitate to ignite the flames, to burn the flesh of a baby, to increase the hatred and terror."
"Citizens of Israel, a Jewish and democratic Israel, democratic and Jewish Israel, need a wake-up call today," Mr Rivlin said. "The Israel of the Declaration of Independence, the Israel of the vision of the Prophets, of compassion and mercy, today needs a wake-up call. We will not be zealots. We will not be bullies. We will not become a state of anarchy."
Opposition leader and Zionist Union head Isaac Herzog said: "Terror is terror, period. Terrorists are terrorists, period, whether Muslim or Jewish." He urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order the Shin Bet to "tackle Jewish terrorism like [it does] Islamist terror."
An estimated 10,000 people turned up for a rally in Gan Meir, Tel Aviv, to show solidarity with the victims of Thursday’s stabbing attack at Gay Pride Jerusalem in which six people were injured, two critically.
The attacker, Yishai Schlissel, is an Orthodox Jew who only three weeks earlier had been released from prison for carrying out a similar assault at Jerusalem Gay Pride in 2005.
At the rally, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai called on the prime minister and the Knesset to "immediately begin a legislative process that will make the members of the Israeli LGBT community equal citizens."
