A Palestinian militant group that assassinated an Israeli cabinet minister in 2001 said on Tuesday it plans to kill right-wing MK Avigdor Lieberman in retaliation for recent Arab-Jewish clashes in Acre. A spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine made the threat against the lawmaker on the group's radio station. The spokesman, who identified himself as Abu Jamal, said the PFLP would act to defend Israeli Arabs. "Our fingers are on the triggers of our weapons and we know when to direct our fire ... The fate of the Zionist Lieberman will be similar to Ze'evi's," he warned.
In 2001, PFLP gunmen shot dead right-wing minister Rehavam Ze'evi to avenge the assassination of the militant group's leader, Abu Ali Mustafa.
Lieberman wants to transfer Israeli Arab towns to Palestinian jurisdiction and annex large Jewish settlements in the West Bank to Israel. He termed the Acre riots a pogrom against Jews and the start of an intifada, or uprising, inside Israel. The Palestinian news agency Ma'an on Tuesday quoted Abu Jamal as also saying that the Israel-Hamas truce in Gaza would not stop his group from responding to the violence which he said was a part of a policy of expelling Palestinians from Israel.
The tension in the mixed city began Wednesday when an Arab resident drove into a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in the city on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, during which Israelis across the country refrain from driving. Outraged at what they described as a deliberate provocation, the Jewish residents assaulted the driver, sparking riots that raged in the city for five days.