WATCH: Palestinians attack PA police in Ramallah
Amid mounting criticism of Abbas’s cooperation with Israel, youths pelt Palestinian police station with rocks
Avi Issacharoff, The Times of Israel's Middle East analyst, fills the same role for Walla, the leading portal in Israel. He is also a guest commentator on many different radio shows and current affairs programs on television. Until 2012, he was a reporter and commentator on Arab affairs for the Haaretz newspaper. He also lectures on modern Palestinian history at Tel Aviv University, and is currently writing a script for an action-drama series for the Israeli satellite Television "YES." Born in Jerusalem, he graduated cum laude from Ben Gurion University with a B.A. in Middle Eastern studies and then earned his M.A. from Tel Aviv University on the same subject, also cum laude. A fluent Arabic speaker, Avi was the Middle East Affairs correspondent for Israeli Public Radio covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Iraq and the Arab countries between the years 2003-2006. Avi directed and edited short documentary films on Israeli television programs dealing with the Middle East. In 2002 he won the "best reporter" award for the "Israel Radio” for his coverage of the second intifada. In 2004, together with Amos Harel, he wrote "The Seventh War - How we won and why we lost the war with the Palestinians." A year later the book won an award from the Institute for Strategic Studies for containing the best research on security affairs in Israel. In 2008, Issacharoff and Harel published their second book, entitled "34 Days - The Story of the Second Lebanon War," which won the same prize.
Palestinians clashed overnight Saturday with Palestinian Authority police in Ramallah and were filmed bombarding a police station with rocks next to the city’s Manara Square.
A Palestinian man, 30-year-old Mohammed Tarifi, was shot around the same time in clashes with security forces at the entrance to Ramallah and later died en route to the hospital. Five other Palestinians were wounded in the clashes.
Israeli forces raided a printing house affiliated with Hamas in a building next to the police station. The Palestinians clashed with IDF troops that were there, but after the Israeli forces departed the area the youths began to attack Palestinian police at the station.
The Palestinian officers arrested a number of the rioters and the situation calmed down. According to Palestinian sources, a number of the detainees held Israeli identification cards.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned the kidnapping of three Israeli teens which prompted the current Israeli activity in the West Bank, and promised that the PA and Palestinian security forces would act to bring about the release of the three young Israelis.
Abbas and his security forces have been castigated in the West Bank and Gaza for aiding in Israel’s search for the missing youths. Senior Hamas figures have been among those who have slammed Abbas for his operational and security coordination with Israel.
One Hamas parliament member, Salah al-Bardawil, called him “an IDF spokesman.”
