Feature: Thousands rally in Tel Aviv to protest extremism following deadly arson attack on Palestinians

Thousands of Israelis took part in a rally in Tel Aviv Saturday evening to protest extremism, violence and incitement following the killing of a Palestinian toddler in an arson attack by suspected Jewish extremists.

"Why was Ali killed? He was 18 months old. What did he do to the settlers, to the soldiers?"Nasser Dawabshe, uncle of Ali Dawabshe, the Palestinian toddler killed in the arson attack, said at the rally in Tel Aviv.

"They burned a peaceful family that doesn't support violence,"he said, with tears streaming down his face.

While presenting these questions to the Israeli government, Dawabshe said that he wishes that the suffering of the Palestinian people would end soon.

"Before Ali there was Mohamad Abu Khdeir, now it's Ali -- who will be next?"the uncle asked.

He was referring to an incident a year ago, in which Jewish extremists burnt to death a 15 year-old Palestinian boy from east Jerusalem, days after the bodies of three Israeli teens who were kidnapped and killed by Palestinian militants were discovered in the West Bank.

The rally, organized by the Peace Now organization under the title "Stop the incitement, stop the hatred", was part of several protests taking place throughout the country on Saturday, in Haifa, Jerusalem and Beer Sheva.

The events took place in the wake of a suspected "price tag" attack in which Jewish assailants set fire to a house in a Palestinian village of Duma in the northern West Bank, killing the toddler, and seriously injuring his parents and brother. On Thursday, an ultra-Orthodox Jew stabbed several Israelis in the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade.

Also attending the rally was the leader of the opposition Zionist Union, Yitzhak Herzog, who said the Jewish people is "ashamed" for the acts perpetrated by Jewish extremists.

He condemned the incitement and urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order the security forces"to handle Jewish terrorism just as they handle terrorism perpetrated by Muslims.

"We have seen how this incitement ended before, this time we will not keep quiet, will not wait or stop," Herzog said, referring to the 1995 killing of then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing assassin, Yigal Amir.

In his address to the rally, Chairman of the left-wing Meretz Party Zehava Galon branded those who perpetrated Thursday's arson attack as "the Jewish IS (Islamic State)," adding that the government's condemnation of the attack is not enough.

"We don't want your nice words, your shock, it's lip service. The incitement is in the air. This is not how you fight the Jewish terrorism," she said.

Yariv Oppenheimer, one of the organizers of the rally, told Xinhua that the rally was organized as an "emergency march" amid the recent violent events.

"The country is ablaze and we cannot keep quiet," he said."The events that started with the attempted murder in Jerusalem in the pride parade and carried on to Jewish terror are not coincident but the result of a violent and extreme atmosphere ignited by public leaders."

Ronnie Haren, 36, from Givataiym in central Israel, told Xinhua that she came to the rally after feeling helpless over the recent attacks.

"In the past year or so it feels like the Jewish right-wing in Israel is getting out of hand and that it's dangerous to be someone with different views or of different ethnicity,"she said.

"The attacks on Thursday and Friday shocked me and saddened me but didn't surprise me. It feels like the public sphere is getting more and more extreme and I just feel helpless. I don't know how I can raise my children in this atmosphere,"she said.

There has been a surge in the number of so-called "price tag" attacks in recent years. These attacks are perpetrated by far-right Jews in order to exact retribution for moves curbing the expansion of Jewish settlements including vandalism and torching of Palestinians' property and holy sites, as well as mosques and churches.

Despite officials' public statements of "cracking down" on attackers, according to the Yesh Din Israeli Human Rights group, Israelis who attack Palestinians are rarely persecuted, with 85 percent of the cases being shut down amid failure to locate suspects and find sufficient evidence. Furthermore, only 7.4 percent of investigations yielded indictments. Enditem