Web Desk
\nJERUSALEM
\nA lawmaker in Israeli on Friday said that police beat him for taking part in a protest against a Jewish settlement in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.
\nOfer Cassif, a Jewish member of the mostly Arab Joint List party, was attending a protest against the expansion of a Jewish settlement in Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem.
\nAn AFP correspondent on the scene witnessed police officers grabbing Cassif and forcing him to the ground, while in footage of the incident published by local Channel 13 News, protesters are heard shouting \u201cmember of parliament\u201d in Hebrew.
\n\u201cThey started to beat me, they broke my glasses… they went crazy,\u201d Cassif says in the Channel 13 footage.
\n\u201cThey didn\u00b4t care that I\u00b4m a member of parliament,\u201d he said.
\nCassif\u00b4s spokesman Itai Aknin told media the injured lawmaker had been taken to hospital and that the demonstration had been \u201cpeaceful and calm\u201d before police arrived. A police statement said initial investigations showed a protester had \u201cattacked one of the officers\u201d.
\n\u201cThe attacker\u201d was released once it \u201cbecame clear that it was a member of parliament\u201d, the statement added.
\nRight-wing lawmaker Gideon Saar tweeted after the incident that \u201cthe police\u00b4s brutal violence against him (Cassif) is a murderous blow to the parliament and to parliamentary immunity\u201d.
\nSaar, who said he \u201cdespises\u201d Cassif\u00b4s worldview, is a former loyalist of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and supports Israeli settlements.
\nCentrist opposition leader Yair Lapid called the incident \u201cshocking\u201d and urged police to investigate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Web Desk JERUSALEM A lawmaker in Israeli on Friday said that police beat him for taking part in a protest against a Jewish settlement in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem. Ofer Cassif, a Jewish member of the mostly Arab Joint List party, was attending a protest against the expansion of a Jewish settlement in Sheikh Jarrah, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-185321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n