The inter-ethnic clashes within Israel during the Gaza operation known as Guardian of the Walls in 2021 "revealed major shortcomings in the Israel Police's conduct to the point that the individual security that every Israeli is entitled to was compromised," the State Comptroller said in a damning report on Wednesday.
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The report notes that during the operation, the widespread riots within Israel's mixed cities were severe and led to the death of three civilians, as well as the wounding of hundreds of law enforcement officers. According to the statistics provided by the State Comptroller's Office, there were 520 instances of such clashes with a total of some 6,000 Israeli Arab rioters taking part overall.
Some 3,000 arrests were made, including 240 Jews, the report said. The report further faults the Israel Police in such cities for not classifying violence by Arab rioters as terrorism in the years immediately preceding the events.
The report cites a lack of training and mismanaged resources. It also said the Israel Police failed to properly hold drills for the very scenarios that they envisioned, which were similar to what ultimately unfolded, and were lax in their tactical intelligence gathering operations.
Another troubling finding suggests that the thousands of calls to the police emergency line in Lod — a hotspot during the operation that saw major clashes – were never addressed.
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