RISHON LEZION Israel - Israeli police on Sunday blocked more than 200 far-right Israeli protesters from rushing guests at a wedding of a Jewish woman and Muslim man as they shouted "death to the Arabs" in a sign of tensions stoked by the Gaza war. Several dozen police formed human chains to keep the protesters from the wedding hall's gates and chased after many who defied them. Four protesters were arrested.
A lawyer for the couple, Maral Malka, 23, and Mahmoud Mansour, 26 - both from the Jaffa section of Tel Aviv - had unsuccessfully sought a court order to bar the protest in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion. A group called Lehava, which organized the wedding demonstration, has harassed Jewish-Arab couples in the past, often citing religious grounds for their objections to intermarriage. But they have rarely protested at the site of a wedding. The groom told Israel's Channel 2 TV the protesters failed to derail the wedding. "We will dance and be merry until the sun comes up. We favor coexistence," he said.
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