Lod Mayor Yair Revivo said on Monday that some 400 families have left the city since Arab riots broke out in May.
During the riots, which began the day Hamas initiated the most recent conflict between Israel and Gaza, Arab rioters set fire to dozens of cars; Jewish property, including synagogues, was vandalized and set ablaze, and stones were thrown at Jewish residents.
Far-right Jewish vigilantes entered Lod in response to the riots and attacked Arab residents and property, following the heavy dissatisfaction of the city’s Jewish residents with police response to the riots.
In one incident, a Jewish resident shot and killed an Arab one who was allegedly part of a rioting mob approaching a Jewish neighborhood.
The inter-communal violence spread to other major mixed Jewish-Arab cities, including Haifa, Acre, Ramle, and beyond.
“Four hundred families have left Lod because of the riots,” Revivo said during a meeting of the Land of Israel Knesset caucus, a right-wing Knesset forum dedicated to advancing Judea and Samaria settlements and opposed to a two-state solution.
Revivo said that mixed cities needed to be given “national priority” for development to encourage people to move to such places.
“We are still in post-trauma. Maybe you heard that there is some kind of quiet, but we experienced a traumatic incident two months ago,” said Revivo.
The mayor said that he had directed significant funds to the Arab sector in his city but that “they turned their backs on us and Palestinian identity prevailed, and the nationalistic demon came out into the open in mixed cities.”