Police Say they Shoot Dead Israeli Arab Car Attacker
Police said that officers shot dead an Israeli Arab who they allege tried to ram them with his car during a protest against home demolitions in southern Israel on Wednesday.
Residents of the Bedouin village of Umm al-Heiran, in the Negev desert, however, said that the driver was simply heading to the scene to talk with authorities in an attempt to halt the demolitions.
Israeli Arab MP Ayman Odeh was also injured in the head by police during the confrontation, a parliamentary aide who was with him said.
A police statement said that the man killed, a local resident, was active in the Israeli Islamic Movement and may have been influenced by the Islamic State organisation -- a claim residents strongly denied.
Umm al-Heiran village activist Raed Abu al-Qiyan named the dead man as Yacoub Abu al-Qiyan, a member of his Bedouin clan, and denied he was seeking to harm police.
"The Israeli narrative is a lie. He was a revered school teacher," he told AFP. "He has no relations with the Islamic Movement.
"He was in his car and they shot at him from everywhere."
Police said officers were injured during the early morning incident, without providing further details.
"A vehicle driven by a terrorist from the Islamic Movement intended to strike a number officers and carry out an attack," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said in a statement.
"The officers responded and the terrorist was neutralised."
A later statement confirmed that the alleged attacker was dead.
"Police were in the area to prevent disturbances during house demolitions in the area," Rosenfeld added.
"As a result of the incident there were riots that took place in the area that police responded to."
The lawmaker injured heads the Joint List, a coalition of mainly Arab parties and the third-largest bloc in parliament.
"They attacked the MP and other people -- demonstrators -- with stun grenades, tear gas directly in people's faces," Odeh's aide, Anan Maalouf, told Israeli army radio.
"There was no car-ramming attack here. There were no clashes here between the demonstrators and police."
Israeli authorities regularly carry out demolitions of Bedouin homes they deem to have been built illegally.
However, building permits are nearly impossible to obtain, according to residents and activists, who say Jewish Israelis are given preferential treatment.
Source: Agence France Presse
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