Itamar Shimoni, Israeli mayor of the costal city of Ashkelon, visits a kindergarten in Ashkelen, Israel, Thursday. Shimoni has suspended Israeli Arab laborers from work, renovating bomb shelters at local day-care centers. The move drew widespread criticism, including from Netanyahu who said "there is no place for discrimination against Israeli Arabs." (Tsafrir Abayov/AP)

Following a bloody attack in which two Palestinian Arabs killed five Israelis in a synagogue in west Jerusalem, an Israeli mayor has caused an uproar by suspending the employment of some Arabs working in his city.

The decision Wednesday by Ashkelon Mayor Itamar Shimoni has prompted even the most hawkish politicians in Israel to speak out in defense of the country’s 1.6 million Arab citizens.

“These steps are aimed at bolstering the feeling of security among residents in Ashkelon,” Shimoni said Thursday in an interview with Israel Radio. Ashkelon, a coastal city near the Gaza Strip, repeatedly came under rocket fire from Palestinian militants in the enclave during a seven-week war in the summer.

On Wednesday night, he posted on his Facebook page that in light of the attack Tuesday on the Jerusalem synagogue and fears expressed by parents, he planned to deploy armed guards to about 40 kindergartens near construction sites where Arabs, including some Palestinians, are working. He also said he would immediately suspend, until further notice, Arab workers contracted by the city to build bomb shelters inside some educational institutions.

Arabs account for more than 20 percent of Israel’s population and are guaranteed full rights under the law. Many of them work in construction in Jewish neighborhoods. But in light of recent attacks by Arabs, mostly in Jerusalem, Jewish Israelis have expressed a particular sense of insecurity and have started to eye Arab citizens of Israel with increasing fear and suspicion.

“People expect the government to take decisive steps to try to prevent this kind of thing from happening again, but it is going to be very complicated. Arabs are with us in all places,” said Uriel Elbaz, director of the community center in the same Jewish neighborhood where Tuesday’s synagogue attack took place.

The decision by Ashkelon’s mayor to ban Arabs from working in his city prompted angry reactions from many Israeli lawmakers and officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hawkish Economy Minister Naftali Bennett.

“There can be no discrimination against Israeli Arabs,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “We must not generalize about an entire public due to a small and violent minority.”

In an interview Thursday morning, Bennett, who is known for his hard-line views toward Palestinians, said that “99.9 percent of Israeli Arabs are loyal citizens of this country; it is only a minority that uses terror.”

“I have already issued special guidelines this morning stating that we will take a zero-tolerance attitude to any discrimination on a racial or religious basis,” Bennett said. He added that he planned to discuss the matter with Ashkelon’s mayor.

Equal Opportunities Employment Commissioner Tziona Koenig-Yair said in a statement: “I expect employers to exercise responsibility and leadership to encourage tolerance and equal opportunities, and not exclusion, particularly local authorities such as the Ashkelon municipality, which publicized that it has terminated the employment of Arabs in the municipality, a step which breaks the Equal Opportunities Law.”

She urged anyone who experienced discrimination in the workplace to contact the commission.

Already by Thursday morning, several human rights groups said they planned to challenge the mayor’s decision and take legal action against him.