Uri Avnery, a left-wing peace activist who in 1982 became the first prominent Israeli to meet in public with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, died on Monday in a Tel Aviv hospital. He was 94.

The encounter took place during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and war with Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), then designated a terrorist group by Israel. Avnery crossed into west Beirut from the Israeli-held east.

“It was the first time Arafat had met with an Israeli, and from this perspective, it could be called a ‘historic meeting’,” Avnery wrote in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper in February.

Secret negotiations a decade later led to interim peace deals with the PLO on establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin, a veteran right-winger, said Avnery had been dedicated to building “a strong and free society” in Israel, praising him despite their “fierce differences”.

Avnery fled Nazi Germany with his family as a boy and became a journalist and politician, serving as one of the most vocal and articulate voices of the Israeli left.

His meeting with Arafat, after he travelled to Lebanon at the invitation of the Israeli military as part of a reporting trip, lasted about two hours and “dealt entirely with the possibility of peace between Israel and the Palestinian people”, he wrote.

It was broadcast the same night on Israeli television and Avnery was questioned by police but ultimately faced no charges.

Avnery served as a lawmaker from 1965 to 1974 and, from 1979 to 1981, as head of a left-wing party. His death, after a stroke, was headline news in Israel on Monday.

In 2003, during the Palestinian uprising, Avnery travelled with other Israeli activists to Arafat’s headquarters in the occupied West Bank, to act as a human shield against what they said were Israeli plans to assassinate Arafat after a Palestinian suicide bombing.

Avnery wrote that working to prevent such an act was “the most patriotic thing” to do at that time since killing Arafat would have been a disaster for Israel. Arafat died in 2004.

Thousands of protesters rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday against Israel’s new law declaring it the nation-state of the Jewish people, legislation that has angered the country’s Arab minority and drawn criticism abroad.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended the law, which says only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country and downgrades Arabic from an official language, saying it is necessary in order to fend off Palestinian challenges to Jewish self-determination.

The protesters, mostly Israeli Arabs, waved Palestinian flags and held up signs that read ‘equality’ in Arabic and Hebrew.

“The law legitimises racism,” said Laila al-Sana, 19, from a Bedouin village in Israel’s southern Negev desert. “It’s very important to show we are here, to resist,” she said.

Israel’s Arab population comprises mainly descendants of the Palestinians who remained on their land after the 1948 war at the time of the creation of the modern state of Israel. Hundreds of thousands were forced to leave their homes or fled.

Many of Israel’s Arab citizens also identify as Palestinian. They make up about a fifth of the state’s 9 million people. Israeli law grants them full equal rights, but many say they face discrimination and are treated as second-class citizens.

“When I heard about the law I felt I should defend my hometown, our land, the land of my ancestors,” said 68-year-old Sheikha Dabbah at the rally.

Largely declarative, the law was enacted just after the 70th anniversary of the birth of the state of Israel.

It stipulates that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it”. It also downgrades Arabic from an official language alongside Hebrew to a “special status.”

“I feel ashamed that after 70 years I have to accentuate my nationalism instead of being generous towards all those who live here,” said Gila Zamir, 58, a Jewish Israeli from the Arab-Jewish city Haifa.

Netanyahu posted on his Twitter page a video from the demonstration of a few protesters waving the Palestinian flag and chanting: “With spirit, with blood we shall redeem you, Palestine” and wrote: “There is no better evidence of the nation-law’s necessity.” Separate TV footage showed a few Israeli flags being waved.

Critics have said the new law is undemocratic because it differentiates between Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. Its defenders say civil equality is guaranteed in existing legislation.

Arab leaders in Israel have said the law verges on apartheid. Rights groups and Jewish groups in the Diaspora have spoken against the legislation, as have the EU, Egypt and Israel’s own president.

Last Saturday a protest against the law by Israel’s Druze community, which numbers about 120,000 citizens, drew a far larger crowd.

The Druze are ethnic Arab members of a religious minority that is an offshoot of Islam incorporating elements of other faiths.

Their outrage over the law has had more resonance in Israel, despite their small numbers, because of their reputation as loyal supporters of the state. Unlike the wider Arab population, many Druze serve in Israel’s conscript military and security forces, and some have risen high in the ranks.

Druze leaders have voiced a deep sense of betrayal over the law, striking a chord among many Israelis. However, efforts by Netanyahu to appease the Druze community have so far failed.

Israeli prosecutors accused two Palestinians on Monday of carrying out last month’s gun rampage in Tel Aviv in the name of Islamic State, but their lawyer denied any link, saying they sought revenge for Israeli crackdowns in the occupied West Bank.

Cousins Mohammed and Khaled Makhamreh, and a third Palestinian charged as their accomplice in the June 8 attack that killed four people, were indicted in Tel Aviv District Court on several counts of murder and attempted murder.

The indictment said they had decided “take revenge on Israel in the name of Islamic State during the (Muslim) fast month of Ramadan”, but did not include any terrorism charges.

Israel’s Shin Bet security service, which took part in the investigation, issued a separate statement saying the accused had been “inspired” by the group “without having been formally recruited or receiving any kind of assistance or instruction”.

Security footage showed the cousins, aged 21 and 20, entering Tel Aviv’s upscale Sarona Market, then pulling out guns in one of the restaurants and firing at diners. They were captured outside by police, who shot and wounded one of them.

Violence has intensified in the last 10 months, stoked by Palestinian frustration at stalled statehood talks, more Israeli settlement building on occupied land, disputes over a Jerusalem mosque, and Islamist-led calls for Israel’s destruction.

Prosecutors said Mohammed Makhamreh was exposed to Islamic State teachings while on a visit to Jordan. Speaking briefly to court reporters, a smiling Makhamreh confirmed he had been to Jordan. Asked if he was with Islamic State, he said: “No, no.”

The cousins’ lawyer, Khaled Mahagna, said both Makhamrehs had confessed to the attack “but do not belong to any group, not ISIS (Islamic State) or any Palestinian faction”.

“They took action because they wanted revenge given the security situation, the occupation, especially in Hebron,” the lawyer said, referring to a flashpoint Palestinian city near the cousins’ hometown that sees regular Israeli army sweeps.

Israel says scores of Islamic State volunteers from among its Arab minority and the Palestinian territories have attempted or succeeded in going to territory the group holds in Syria and Iraq. Palestinian authorities say at least 20 such volunteers have gone from Gaza alone.

Islamic State has also vowed to attack Israel. But Israeli security officials have played down this threat, seeing more immediate dangers from armed Palestinian factions such as Hamas and Hezbollah guerrillas in neighbouring Lebanon.

The indictment said the defendants photographed themselves in front of an Islamic State flag before the attack. But no such picture was shown to the media, and Mahagna said he was not aware of it.