Haaretz reporter Nati Yefet was attacked on Tuesday evening by about 20 Bedouin as he arrived to cover the violent protest in Segev Shalom in southern Israel.
Yefet presented the rioters with a press card issued by the Government Press Office, but they attacked him anyway. One of them stole his car and set it on fire. Yefet managed to escape and a police force rescued him to a safe place.
Dozens of Bedouin rioted at the Segev Shalom junction in the south of the country in protest of the Jewish National Fund planting in the Mulada area.
Two policemen were injured in the riots from rocks and fireworks which were thrown at them.
Earlier on Tuesday, 18 Bedouin were arrested for throwing rocks at police officers during protests against the tree planting.
Meanwhile, Ra'am chairman Mansour Abbas announced that he would stop voting with the coalition in response to the planting of trees by the JNF in the Negev.
“I can’t continue to live with this,” Abbas told Channel 12 News. “I can’t continue like this, I have absorbed more difficult things in the past, but when they shoot straight in my chest I can’t stand it anymore."
Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the Bedouin riots and said that "no one will stop planting trees in the Land of Israel. I give full backing to the security forces and demand that Bennett immediately condemn the incitement of Ra'am, his senior partner in the government."
Foreign Minister and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid called for a halt to the tree planting, as Netanyahu did in his previous government.
"12 years of abandoning the Negev and neglecting the Bedouin problem will not be solved in one day. The State of Israel should plant trees on state lands, but must not harm the livelihoods of the area's residents. Just as the Netanyahu government stopped planting in 2020, it is possible to stop it now as well and reorganize. The government of change is committed to solving the Bedouin problem and bringing about settlement in the Negev," Lapid said.