WADI ARA: Thousands of Arab Israelis protested in northern Israel on Saturday, days after a Bedouin man was killed during clashes with police in the south.
Yacoub Abu Al-Qiyan, 50, died in disputed circumstances Wednesday when police raided the Bedouin village of Umm Al-Hiran in order to demolish several homes.
Police said he had deliberately driven at forces entering the town, killing a policeman.
Residents and activists said he was shot before losing control of the car.
Protesters marched through the northern town of Wadi Ara on Saturday, many carrying Palestinian flags and placards denouncing house demolitions.
Some had signs condemning the government’s “campaign of lies” about Abu Al-Qiyan’s death.
Police used sound bombs to prevent them from blocking a nearby road.
Lawyers for Abu Al-Qiyan’s family said Friday they had filed a petition calling for his body to be returned without preconditions.
They said family members had been asked to agree to receive the body only at night, and to limit attendees at the funeral to 40-50 people.
Police said they would not give the body back until a full autopsy had been completed and would not confirm they had placed conditions on returning the body.
The Adalah NGO, along with an Arab Israeli parliamentarian, filed a petition with Israel’s Supreme Court calling for his body to be released immediately.
Attorney Nadeem Shehadeh from the Adalah NGO said the authorities had demanded that the body be buried in a neighboring village.
Israel routinely places preconditions on returning the bodies of Palestinians it says have carried out attacks, arguing the funerals can turn into glorifying violence.
Arab Israelis protest after Bedouin death
Arab Israelis protest after Bedouin death
Syrian leader to meet Putin, Russia seeks deal on military bases
- Russia’s continued sheltering of Assad and his wife since their ouster remains a thorny issue
MOSCOW: Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa will meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, as the Kremlin seeks to secure the future of its military bases in the country.
Putin and Sharaa struck a conciliatory tone at their previous meeting in October, their first since Sharaa’s rebel forces toppled Moscow-ally Bashar Assad in 2024.
But Russia’s continued sheltering of Assad and his wife since their ouster remains a thorny issue. Sharaa has repeatedly pushed Russia for their extradition.
Sharaa, meanwhile, has embraced US President Donald Trump, who on Tuesday praised the Syrian leader as “highly respected” and said things were “working out very well.”
Putin, whose influence in the Middle East has waned since Assad’s ouster, is seeking to maintain Russia’s military footprint in the region.
Russia withdrew its forces from the Qamishli airport in Kurdish-held northeast Syria earlier this week, leaving it with only the Hmeimim air base and Tartus naval base on Syria’s Mediterranean coast — its only military outposts outside the former Soviet Union.
“A discussion is planned on the status of bilateral relations and prospects for developing them in various fields, as well as the current situation in the Middle East,” the Kremlin said of the upcoming meeting in a statement on Tuesday.
Russia was a key ally of Assad during the bloody 14-year Syrian civil war, launching air strikes on rebel-held areas of Syria controlled by Sharaa’s Islamist forces.
The toppling of Assad dealt a major blow to Russia’s influence in the region and laid bare the limits of Moscow’s military reach amid the Ukraine war.
The United States, which cheered Assad’s demise, has fostered ever-warmer ties with Sharaa — even as Damascus launched a recent offensive against Kurdish forces long backed by the West.
Despite Trump’s public praise, both the United States and Europe have expressed concern that the offensive in Syria’s northeast could precipitate the return of Islamic State forces held in Kurdish-held jails.
