Israeli police, Druse in rare clash after cellphone tiff

JERUSALEM - A normally quiet Galilee village turned into a battleground at dawn yesterday as police officers clashed with rioters from the Druse community, police officials and community leaders said.

Among the injured were at least 16 police officers and a similar number of medics and residents. One resident was in serious condition after being shot in the stomach, according to emergency service officials. One policeman was hospitalized with serious head wounds, a police spokesman said.

The episode, in the northern Israeli village of Pekiin, was all the more unusual because it involved the Druse, a tiny and peaceful minority of 130,000 people, less than 2 percent of Israel's total population of just over 7 million. The Druse practice a secret religion and are known for their loyalty to the states in which they reside, including Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan. Israeli Druse are enlisted for compulsory military service, and many join the police force.

The clashes erupted after a large force of more than 100 police officers entered the village at 4 a.m. with the intention of arresting five men suspected of having vandalized a cellphone antenna installed in the neighboring community of New Pekiin, the police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said. The villagers believe that radiation from the antenna causes cancer.

"The police came under a barrage of rocks, boulders, and metal bars thrown by masked youths," Rosenfeld said. "Our officers were in a life-threatening situation, and it was necessary for one to open fire with live ammunition to get out of the situation." He added that the police arrested six rioters who were not connected with the antenna incident.

The police left the village at about 7 a.m. and calm was restored, but one Israeli border policewoman was left behind. She had been surrounded by rioters, but "luckily," said Rosenfeld, "one of the villagers, an ex-policeman, took her into his house for safety." He said many of the villagers had served in the police force.

A dialogue ensued between police representatives and the village sheik, and about two hours later, the policewoman was handed over unharmed, Rosenfeld said. In return, the six villagers arrested in the riots were released.

Israel's deputy foreign minister, Majallie Wahbee, a Druse legislator from the ruling Kadima party, condemned the police actions in Pekiin.

"Of course we all have to keep the law," he said in a telephone interview, "but here it was the police who caused the lawlessness. Would they send in such a large, armed force, like an army operation, to arrest someone in Tel Aviv?"

The mayor of Pekiin, Hamed Kheir, told Army Radio that the problem was the antenna. "For a month we've been talking with the antenna's owner to get him to take it down, because in Pekiin there are more than 100 cancer patients," Kheir said. He admitted that youths from the village had destroyed the antenna over the weekend.