Security guard kills protester during violent clashes in Arab Israeli town

A security guard shot and killed a Palestinian-Israeli protester as hundreds of demonstrators attacked a police station in central Israel overnight and set fire to vehicles, police said on Tuesday.

The violence erupted after police officers in the Arab-Israeli town of Kafr Qassem attempted to apprehend a suspect wanted for questioning, police said

About 50 residents confronted the officers and hurled rocks at them, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told reporters.

Hundreds of residents, some of them masked, later broke through the gates of the local police station and tried to enter the building, he said.

”The security guard at the police station felt his life was in danger and opened fire,“ Rosenfeld said.

”A short while after, a local resident (taken) to hospital in serious condition died.“

The man was later identified as Mohammed Taha, 21.

Television footage distributed by the police showed rocks strewn along the road and three vehicles on fire.

But Kafr Qassem's mayor, Adel Badir, said the guard had used excessive force. "I don't understand how the security guard could say he felt his life was in danger if he had police officers with him," Badir told Army Radio.

Kafr Qassem is home to around 20,000 residents, most of them Palestinian citizens of Israel, and is close to the so-called Green Line separating Israel from the occupied West Bank.

In 1956, Israeli forces killed 48 people in an infamous massacre during a curfew in the area.

Several Arab-Israeli lawmakers, including Ahmad Tibi and Ayman Odeh from the Joint List and Esawi Frej from Meretz, arrived in the area on Tuesday to calm tensions in the wake of the violence, the Jewish Post reported.

On Tuesday morning Odeh, who chairs the Joint List party, told reporters: ”The police are adding insult to injury. They are not only abandoning the security of our streets, they are attacking and harming civilians.”

He also called on police to act more aggressively to protect the Arab population of the city. He said: ”The police continue to treat the Arab population as enemies who must be protected against and not as civilians to be protected.“

Badir said tensions with police have been high in recent weeks, because residents feel officers have been ignoring a rise in violent crime

According to police, the violence began when police attempted to detain a driver from the city when it was discovered during a routine permit check that he was wanted for interrogation by security forces. The statement said that the riot began as police attempted to take the driver in for questioning. Around 50 local residents began pelting the police car with rocks and then proceeded to attack the station, setting fire to three police vehicles.

Other local media outlets have reported that the violence began after a demonstration against the police's failure to combat a crime wave in the city got out of control. Violent crime in the city has recently claimed the lives of six people.

Meretz's Frej told reporters that there must be an immediate investigation into the “murder” of the protester by the security guard.

He described the police statement that the guard was acting in self defence as “nonsense”.

Police in the area remain on high alert ahead of the Taha’s funeral, which is due to take place Tuesday afternoon.