With the elections over, Israeli security forces are continuing to be on high alert, as Israeli Arabs mark Land Day on Thursday.
The High Monitoring Committee of Israeli Arabs decided the main event of Land Day this year will be in Lod, a mixed Jewish-Arab town in the center of Israel.
Protests around the country will focus this year on what the organizers see as a tendentious policy of the Israeli government to demolish houses of Arabs and confiscate land.
The Israeli Police has decided to close off the Temple Mount to visitors, fearing that both radical Jews and Arabs will cause provocations.
Land Day commemorates a 1976 confrontation between Israeli police and Arabs protesting seizure of land in the Galilee. Six demonstrators were killed in an ensuing riot.
Some 1.2 million people living in Israel (about a sixth of Israel’s population), are Arabs. Most of them are citizens who can also vote for the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. Arabs won seven parliament seats in the recent elections in Israel. Many Israeli Arabs feel they are discriminated against by the Israeli government.