The Arab who incited others to riot in eastern <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Akko Mayor Shimon Lankry announced Sunday that "the man who announced at the city's mosques that there are injuries in the eastern neighborhoods… has fled to the territories."
Lankry added that the man who drove young masked Arabs in a minibus into the Jewish neighborhood had also fled police.
The men he brought with him brandished axes, knives and truncheons as they piled out of the bus, yelling "Itbah al Yahud" (Slaughter the Jews) and "Allah Hu Akbar" (G-d is Great – the traditional Arabic war cry).
The Arab driver whose behavior in the Jewish neighborhood on Yom Kippur Eve started all the trouble in the first place was released from custody last week. Tawfik Jamal denied at a special Knesset Committee meeting last week accusations that he had been drunk, or that he had been playing his car stereo excessively loud as he allegedly pulled his car around the traffic circle in the neighborhood at high speed.
Approximately 1,000 police officers have been deployed in the ancient seaport city to keep the peace after days of riots that were sparked by the incident. Police said last week that they may lower their presence if Tuesday's Shemini Atzeret/Simhat Torah holiday passes without incident.