A civil war has erupted; "Animals live here" PHOTO / VIDEO

A civil war has erupted; "Animals live here" PHOTO / VIDEO

The synagogue in that city is set on fire, the streets are full of burning cars and thrown stones. Heavily armed and armored police patrol the streets, while residents are mostly locked in houses. The city authorities declared a state of emergency, introduced a curfew and brought reinforcements from the occupied West Bank, writes Index.hr.

"Those animals destroyed and burned. We will rebuild, we will build an even bigger one," Eitan Schnur angrily told the Guardian reporter, talking about his Arab and Palestinian neighbors who, as he said, set fire to the synagogue on Thursday night. This was neither the first nor the second, but the fifth synagogue set on fire last week in Lod, a city with a mixed Jewish, majority and Arab minority population, which became a hotbed of terrifying and virtually unprecedented street violence that spread across the country.

"Animals live here," repeated Schnur, who works in the diamond trade, pointing to apartments near the synagogue. "I have Arab friends, but people between the ages of 20 and 30, they are much more extreme now," he said, as a teenager in the synagogue shouted behind him, "Kill them!" It is clear who he means - the Palestinian and Arab citizens, reports Index.

There has also been unrest in other cities with a large Israeli Arab population, as well as in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Painful footage of the violence is also being shared on social media - a terrified Arab family trying to prevent men armed with batons from breaking through their front door, a group of Palestinian protesters beating Israelis, and Israeli girls waving Israeli flags and dancing merrily in front of a demolished Arab-owned store.

Also, an Arab was stabbed in the Machane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem, reports the Times of Israel. A 19-year-old Israeli soldier was beaten in Jaffa and ended up in hospital with a skull fracture and a brain hemorrhage. On the other hand, in the predominantly Arab town of Umm al-Fahm, a local mob attacked a Jewish family in a car with three children who entered the city by accident. Police and other locals rescued them from the enraged mob.

Arab Mayor Samir Mahamid later called the attacked father of three children and expressed his "shock and disgust" with the attack of his compatriots.

An eight-year-old Jewish girl was also hit in the head with a stone while driving with her family in a car near the town of Beersheba.