‘Shabbat, the Jews are sleeping, let’s play’: Group arrested running wild in kibbutz

A group of young men from the northern town of Acre were arrested for rioting after they rode horse-drawn carriages through a kibbutz on Saturday afternoon, churning up grass lawns as they shouted and played loud music.

The group filmed themselves riding through Kfar Masaryk, located south of Acre, shouting and playing loud music as they drove across lawns.

“Shabbat, the Jews are sleeping, let’s play!” one of the men can be heard saying in the video.

“Why don’t the police like us?…Why do the police detain us and bully us?” one of the men says in the clip, whose audio is at times unclear.

A security guard chased the group out of the kibbutz, the Ynet news site reported.

Police arrived on the kibbutz when the group had already left, and opened an investigation.

They later announced that five “rioters,” aged around 20, were arrested.

אירוע מטריד של בריונים שנכנסו לקיבוץ כפר מסריק מנוצל על ידי תומכי הליכוד לניגוח פוליטי ולשמחה בגלל שהקיבוץ הוא שמאלני והבריונים הם ערבים.
כאילו שאין מקרים של בריונות של בני 18-30 ערסים יהודים וכאילו התופעה המרכזית כאן היא הפוליטית ולא מלחמה בבריונות pic.twitter.com/n9HmN6vJNp

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An unnamed official from the kibbutz described the incident to the Walla news site as “bullying,” adding that it was not the first time something like that had happened.

“There have been similar incidents in the past, once with bicycles, but not with horses and nothing as serious as this that required us to call the police. There are a lot of workers on the kibbutz from the Arab community — we respect them and they respect us,” the official said.

Acre has a reputation of coexistence between its Arab and Jewish communities. However, it was the scene of some of the worst violence in local unrest that took place during the 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza last May.