The death of an Ethiopian-Jewish teen at the hands of an off-duty police officer has sparked protests across Israel. Israeli police allowed the protests but had to step in when they turned into violent riots, a spokesman tells RT.

Israel is facing its own Black Lives Matter moment, as members of the 140,000-strong Ethiopian-Jewish community have come out to protest a plainclothes police officer shooting a teenager to death in Haifa. The initially peaceful protests quickly turned violent, with rioters setting cars on fire and attacking civilians as well as police, national police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told RT.

[There are] large scale riots in and around almost all of the major junctions across Israel from the north to the south, and police units have had to respond to tremendously violent incidents that have included injured officers.

Rosenfeld added that 136 people have been arrested over the past 48 hours.

The situation began when a plainclothes officer drew his weapon during a confrontation with a group of teenagers in a park. The officer claims he fired at the ground, but the bullet ricocheted, fatally wounding 18-year-old Teka.

Protesters have called the killing a murder, and say it is just another act in a long history of violence against the Ethiopian-Jewish community.

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