63 injured in Tel Aviv clashes

Fifty-six policemen and seven people were injured overnight during protests, the second one in four days, against excessive police violence on people of Ethiopian origin and discrimination by authorities, according to police sources.

Police arrested 43 protesters during the clashes which took place at the iconic Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, Efe news agency reported citing the sources.

Israeli police resorted to force when several thousand protesters moved towards the mayor's office and after two hours tried to enter the premises, Israeli media reported.

Police used pepper gas and tear gas on the protesters to bring the situation under control.

Police chief Yohanan Danino told Channel 10 that his officers acted with "restraint" and tried to negotiate with the protesters, whose gathering was anyway "unauthorised".

Tensions flared on April 26 when a home video on internet showed two white police officers violently arresting and using excessive force on an Ethiopian immigrant in the city of Holon.

"Seventy percent of Ethiopians have been concentrated in ghettos in 17 localities, creating tensions with the rest of the population, and since they put us there they have forgotten about us," said Avi, an Ethiopian protester.

According to some romantic interpretations, Ethiopian Jews are descendants of the love affair between the Biblical King Solomon and Queen of Sheba.

These immigrant Jews came to Israel in two secret airlifts during the 1980s and 1990s.

Owing to wide differences in culture and skin colour, the authorities' attempts to get them to adapt to the new environment resulted in a resounding failure, leading to high rates of alcoholism, family violence, unemployment and poverty.

Following an equally violent protest on Thursday, fresh protests began early Sunday afternoon when demonstrators blocked the main highway from Tel Aviv during rush hour, causing traffic jams for several hours.

Police sources said that the protesters threw stones, sticks, bottles and all kinds of blunt objects at the officers, compelling them to use force to check the situation.

Dani Adino Abeba, an Ethiopian journalist for the Yediot Aharonot newspaper, wrote on Sunday that the complaint against "police violence is just the tip of the iceberg".

The recent protests are "a cumulative fatigue" of the last 30 years, as all this time the rest of the Israeli population has never really seen them "as equals", Abeba added.