Israeli Arabs March in Protest at Syria Bloodshed

About 2,000 Israeli Arabs protested on Saturday to demand that Syrian President Bashar Assad step down and to show solidarity with Syrian civilians killed by regime forces, an Agence France Presse journalist said.

Marchers in the protest, organized by the Islamic Movement, carried pictures of children killed in the violence in Syria, where the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that than 13,500 people have died since the uprising broke out almost 16 months ago.

An AFP journalist at the demonstration in the Galilee Arab town of Tamra said that participants shouted "Assad go home!" and "Free Syria!"

Other witnesses reported chants of "Assad butchers his people!"

Some 1.37 million Israeli citizens, slightly more than 20 percent, are Arabs.

They are the remainder, or descendants, of Palestinians who did not flee or were not driven out during the Arab-Israeli war that accompanied the 1948 foundation of the Jewish state.