MK Khenin: Government Continues to Exhibit Total Lack of Empathy for Arab Citizens

The Police Investigations Unit intends to close its probe into an incident that saw an officer shoot dead an Arab man who allegedly “had menaced a police cruiser with a knife,” Channel 10 reported Monday, April 13. The killing of Kheir Hamdan, 22, in the northern town of Kafr Kanna last November set off days of violent demonstrations.

With support from the local Popular Committee, Kafr Kanna residents start rebuilding the demolished home in their town.

With support from the local Popular Committee, Kafr Kanna residents start rebuilding the demolished home in their town. (Photo: Al Ittihad).

Footage of the incident showed Hamdan approaching the police car and tapping on the window repeatedly with what police claimed was a knife. An officer then stepped out of the vehicle and shot Hamdan, who was then walking away from the car, from behind fatally wounding him. According to the Channel 10 report, the policeman who pulled the trigger was never questioned under caution and has continued at his post since the shooting.

On Monday, residents of Kafr Kanna, located in the Lower Galilee, clashed with police as workers arrived to destroy a home that was constructed without a permit. Police used stun grenades to disperse the crowds. There were no reported injuries.

MK Dov Khenin of Hadash-Joint List condemned the reported closing of the investigation into the November shooting and the clashes over this week’s home demolition saying, in a statement issued Tuesday, that both were manifestations of an unacceptable attitude towards the Arab population in Israel. “There is a common denominator in the incidents at Kafr Kanna: A government which continues to exhibit a total lack of empathy when it comes to Arab citizens,” Khenin said. “It is time to put an end to such blatant insensitivity,” he added. “This policy is destructive and constitutes a problem for both Jews and Arabs — for anyone, in fact, with a moral compass.”

MK Ayman Odeh (Hadash), head of the Joint List, spent Monday night in a protest tent set up at the site of the demolished home, which had belonged to a local resident, Tariq Khatib. Odeh said that the demolition was “typical of the situation facing our Arab society, and demonstrates the extent of the state’s racist-based discrimination in the provision of housing for Arab citizens.”

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