Jerusalem: Hundreds of Israeli Arabs Sunday protested across the country in a second day of clashes with the police over a video footage showing Arab youth being shot at while retreating from the police.

Dozens of masked protesters set tires on fire and hurled stones at the police near the northern village of Kafr Kana, where policemen shot and killed Saturday Khair Hamdan, a 22-year-old Arab citizen of Israel, after he attempted to attack a police car with a knife, Xinhua reported.

Twenty protesters were arrested in suspicion of "hurling stones and rioting", a police spokesperson said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Israel`s Ynets news website reported that dozens of Arab students and supporters protested in the universities of Tel Aviv and Haifa, where they waved Palestinian flags and posters that read "Israel is a terror state."

The incident stirred the Arab public in the country, some 1.6 million people that is about 20 percent of the Israeli population.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backed the police and lashed out at the demonstrations, saying they are "incited by Hamas and the Islamic movement in Israel."