JERUSALEM, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Two marches were held Saturday in Israel to call for the arrest of police officers who killed 13 Palestinians during the October riots in 2000.
Thousands of people joined the march in Sakhnin in the lower Galilee, Ynetnews.com reported. A smaller march was held in Nazareth.
Ahmad Tibi, a member of the Knesset, or parliament, said the police officers "committed murder" and should have been tried.
"Unfortunately, the State of Israel has betrayed its citizens and favored the killers over the victims; all in the name of hatred and racism and the sense of authority over them," he added.
Hanin Boabi, also a Knesset member, marched in Nazareth.
"The state sees us as enemies because we are Palestinians and we don't deny our identity," she said. "This country views any non-Zionist affiliation as a threat, even if we were born here."
The riots began Oct. 1, 2000, in Israel, two days after a visit by Ariel Sharon, the leader of the Likud Party and a future prime minister, to the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount, in a part of Jerusalem captured in the 1967 War, is the holiest part of Jerusalem to religious Jews and the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
