Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi participated in a protest on Friday at the site of a former Muslim Cemetery in Jaffa and warned that “rage is building up because of how police are treating Arab protesters,” Walla reported. Hundreds of protesters took part in the event and listened to a sermon by Kamal Hatib of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement.Hatib said that the cemetery is evidence that “we are not the guests here, they are” and claimed that “some people think that God made all nations to serve the chosen people, the Jews,” Haaretz reported.
The former cemetery had not been used for roughly 80 years, when the Muslim community of Jaffa decided to use it as a soccer field and moved the bodies.
However, as Tel Aviv has planned to build a center for homeless people on the location, human remains had been uncovered, leading some Arab residents of the city to call for a halting of the project and to preserve the Muslim status of the site.
A court ruling allowed the city of Tel Aviv to continue with the work, but violent protests in early June led to it being stopped.