Lod Mayor Yair Revivo
Lod Mayor Yair RevivoHezki Baruch

Residents and municipal employees from the city of Lod demonstrated outside the cabinet meeting in Jerusalem Sunday, demanding the government act following s spate of murders in their city.

Lod Mayor Yair Revivo said that "five murders in ten days is something that even Lod has not seen before. I am going to tell the prime minister that we love and support him, but we cannot wait for the judicial reforms to be completed" before the government acts to combat the rising crime.

Residents of Lod have held several demonstrations in Jerusalem in recent days calling for the restoration of law and order in their city. A demonstration was held at Jerusalem's central bus station on Thursday.

In addition, the committee representing the Arab resident of Lod announced a strike in all Arab-owned businesses in the city in the wake of the recent violence.

Revivo demanded that the government establish a sub-committee for national security, station 500 police officers in Lod permanently, transfer the responsibility for combatting crime in Lod to the Lehav 433 unit, which has been called 'Israel's FBI,' the Unit of International Crime Investigations, and the Shabak and to expel crime families away from Lod.

"Enough already, the time has come for them to take Lod seriously, we came to Jerusalem to raise a cry - because the problems of Lod today will be the problems of Tel Aviv, Rishon Lezion, Tiberias and Be'er Sheva tomorrow," Revivo said.

"This time we will not stop the protests until the government helps us. This protest is the beginning, if we have to shut down transportation in the heart of Israel, we will," the mayor announced. "This is the first joint protest of all the populations in Lod - Jews and Arabs together, and we hope that the prime minister and his ministers will hear our cry and that they will act to save Lod."

As part of the protest led by the mayor, the municipal offices were closed to allow the residents and municipal employees to go to Jerusalem.

Ahead of today's protest, Revivio distributed a message to his constituents which reads: "Dear residents, enough is enough! This Sunday we will go to Jerusalem and say at the beginning of the government meeting: 'With all due respect to the judicial reform, you must immediately devote time to changing the governing legislation, so that the Shabak can come in to deal with crime, that illegal gun owners will be brought to prison, and that the criminals be removed from here immediately. It's time for all of us to leave our apathy and keyboards and come, Jews and Arabs, to shout and protest, because this is really not just a problem of Lod, but a problem of governance in the State of Israel."

On Wednesday, a man was killed in a suspected car bombing in Lod. Several hours later, another man was shot and killed in the city. Both incidents are believed to be criminal in nature and not terrorism.