Four law students at the Netanya College were refused entry at the city's Sharon Mall on Tuesday because the security guards identified them as being non-Jewish.

The students were asked to leave after one of them could not produce an identity card, even though his colleagues did present theirs. As they were ordered to leave, a guard sarcastically told them: "Now you have something to do your clerkship about."

The four students said they went to the mall on Tuesday morning, and at the parking lot opened their car trunk for inspection. The guard asked to see identity cards.

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"This is the first time that I have been asked to show an identity card at the mall," said Sami Khoury. One of the four, a resident of Haifa, did not have his identity card with him, and consequently the guard prevented them from entering the mall.

Mall secuirty guard, Meir Twito, arrived and explained that because they are members of "minorities," they had to show an identity card.

"I told Twito that this is racism, and that we are being checked because we are Arabs, and he told us to complain - and that 'now you have something to do your clerkship about,'" Khoury said.

The chief of security at the mall, Uri Peled, said that "the matter was being investigated."