Clashes erupt in Jaffa after Israeli forces kill Palestinian youth

Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian-Israeli protesters in the port city of Jaffa on Saturday, after one man was shot and another wounded by soldiers.

Police say the two men were shot during the morning after they fled the scene of an earlier incident on a scooter. They were later taken to hospital for treatment, where one of the suspects, 20-year-old Mahdi al-Saadi, died.

"From our point of view, this [the shooting] is the straw that broke the camel's back because we suffer from it every day," Attorney Mouhamad Adreie of Jaffa's Muslim Council told Haaretz.

"The police in Jaffa are perceived as a criminal body that conducts criminal acts against the residents and not as a body that aims to impose order and tranquility in the streets."

Protests erupted after news of the men's deaths spread, leading to clashes with Israeli forces who attempted to disperse the crowds of Palestinian residents.

Images and footage posted to social media show Israeli soldiers violently subduing protesters. Three men were reportedly arrested during the clashes.

The shooting comes amid raised tensions in the region over now-repealed security measures at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, as well as a spate of fatal shootings of Arabs by Israeli forces.

The slain man's family accused Israeli forces of "killing him in cold blood", according to Israel's i24 News Arabic. They questioned whether the same use of force would have applied had the suspect been Jewish.

Saadi's funeral was held on the same day as his death, according to local media outlets.