Several hundred Tel Aviv slum dwellers rioted against soaring prices today and about 400 workers demonstrated outside Histadrut headquarters to demand union backing for wage increases to meet spiraling living costs. Port workers in Ashdod called an emergency meeting for wage increases in the wake of the government’s emergency economic measures announced this morning and threatened reprisals they were refused.
Police rushed reinforcements to the Hatinva quarter, a poor neighborhood in southeastern Tel Aviv, where mobs smashed their way into shops and supermarkets shouting “We want sugar,” a commodity that tripled in price as a result of the devaluation of the Pound today. The rioters attacked buses, police cars and other passing vehicles.
According to the police, the unrest began late yesterday with window smashing by youths who objected to the cancellation of a football (soccer) game in which a local team was to have played. When the stern new economic measures were announced this morning, wholesale rioting began. Police blocked off the area and diverted traffic.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
