One homicide a day. There is an epidemic of crime exacerbating inequalities in Israeli society

Israeli police solved only 15% of homicides in Israel’s Arab communities, compared to 65% among Israeli Jews

A mother shot dead outside a supermarket. A man dead after leaving a mosque. A doctor shot dead while treating patients. These shocking cases are no longer anomalies: they are the result of an epidemic of violent crime plaguing Israel.

They are all victims. Homicides in the community have increased so dramatically that, on average, one person has been killed each day this year. Palestinian citizens represent 20% of the country’s population, and many say that the Israeli government has not only failed to stem the wave of crime, but its inaction has helped fuel a cycle of violence perpetrated largely by Arab organized criminal groups.

The data reveals a stark inequality: Israeli police solved just 15% of homicides in Israel’s Arab communities, compared to 65% among Israeli Jews, according to data from the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, and Eilaf, the Center for the Advancement of Security in Arab Society.

Palestinian citizens of Israel are descendants of those who were not expelled or forced when Israel was founded in 1948. They received citizenship but lived under military rule until 1966, and many say they continue to face discrimination in Israeli society.

Last year was the deadliest on record for the community, with 252 deaths – the vast majority from gunfire – according to a report published by Abraham Initiatives, a group that promotes social inclusion and equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel.

And 2026 has already gotten off to a bloody start, with 46 dead so far, according to the group.

It’s a deadly reality that has raised alarms, with tens of thousands of the country’s Palestinian citizens taking to the streets in recent weeks – accompanied by some Israeli Jews – to demand government action.

“No to death, no to murder, we want to live in justice,” protesters shouted in Arabic at a January protest in Sakhnin, a majority-Palestinian city in northern Israel that drew tens of thousands of people.

Participants told CNN it was the largest demonstration the Arab community had seen in years, culminating a multi-day general strike by store owners.

What began there has grown into a national protest movement, with strikes and demonstrations occurring almost daily throughout Israel. Streets across the country were filled with a sea of ​​black flags and water fountains were dyed red as citizens declared a “national day of disruption”.

A week after the strike in Sakhnin, Israeli President Isaac Herzog made a rare visit to the city, where he met with local Arab officials and protest organizers.

He said that the fight against crime and violence in the Arab community “must be at the top of national priorities and be treated with the utmost determination”, calling it a “moral obligation”.

And on Thursday, Israel Police Commissioner Daniel Levi declared crime in the Arab community “a state of national emergency” and “an intolerable situation that must end.”

He called on other government agencies to join the police in helping to resolve the issue.

“Let them kill each other”

For many Palestinian citizens of Israel, the statements rang hollow. Qasem Awad waited more than a year for his son’s killer to be brought to justice.

The son, Abdullah, a doctor from Mazra’a in the western Galilee, was treating a mother and her two children at a clinic last February when a masked gunman entered and shot him dead at close range. He was 30 years old at the time.

Abdullah was filling in for another doctor that day. The father believes he was mistaken for someone else.

“If we look at the Palestinian Arab community in Israel, how many are killed every day for no reason?” asks Awad. “These people have nothing to do with the criminal world. They are collateral damage, and my son is one of them.”

In the days following Abdullah’s death, his parents say Israeli police visited them and assured them they would investigate his death and identify the perpetrator.

More than a year later, the promise has still not been fulfilled and the family claims to have not received any news from the police authorities.

If his son had been Jewish, Awad believes the killer would have been arrested “within an hour”.

Like many others in his community, Awad understands that the Israeli government willfully neglects crimes committed against Palestinian citizens.

“This is part of a policy of divide and conquer. ‘Let them kill each other while we sit back and relax,'” he says.

Awad highlights how quickly Palestinian perpetrators are brought to justice for crimes against Israelis.

“Technological tools and know-how are available to capture the killers. But when this affects the Arab population, they no longer have the tools or the know-how?”, he asks.

According to the Eilaf report, Palestinian citizens of Israel face “selective application” of the law.

“On the one hand, a tough approach towards political activity and freedom of expression and, on the other, a soft approach towards criminals and crime,” the report states.

In response to a question from CNN, the Israel Police say in a statement that “a thorough and complex investigation was launched” following Awad’s murder, where authorities interrogated “dozens of parties involved, with the aim of locating the suspects and uncovering the truth.”

Homicides double under Ben Gvir’s watch

Data compiled by Abraham Initiatives shows that homicide cases among Palestinian citizens of Israel have more than doubled in 2023.

This was the first full year that far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir oversaw the police.

Ben Gvir, who was convicted of supporting terrorism and inciting anti-Arab racism, rejected responsibility, blaming local Arab leaders for turning a blind eye to criminal activities. Last month, it said it had “allocated enormous resources to the fight against crime and criminal organizations”.

Critics say Ben Gvir’s actions speak louder than his words. Just months after taking office, the minister cut essential funding for an anti-Arab crime initiative called “Stop the Bleeding,” launched by the previous government. The following year, he fired the police officer responsible for combating crime in Arab society and placed a lower-ranking officer in his place.

In February, Ben Gvir defended the work he has done, stating on Kan Reshet Bet radio that there had been “great successes” during his term. “I don’t work for Arabs, not just for Arabs,” he said. “I work for everyone.”

“There are 20% fewer homicides in the Jewish sector, let’s put that on the table… 60% fewer homicides of Jewish women and 20% fewer carjackings.” Ben Gvir said that crime in the Arab sector is a “serious phenomenon” and that he intends to “fight it”. But he blamed the attorney general, with whom he has an ongoing rivalry, and “40 years of negligence” by authorities for the increase, despite the record number of homicides during his tenure.

The concern is not just the increase in homicides, but the increasing audacity with which they are committed.

According to the Eilaf report, three in four homicides last year occurred in public spaces, indicating the “dangerous normalization of open crime… without any real fear of immediate intervention or effective deterrence.”

“In light of weak governance, limited police presence and diminished trust in institutions, organized crime in Arab cities has found fertile ground for expansion, gradually building its economic and social influence by exploiting the void left by the state,” says Rawyah Handaqlu, director of Eilaf.

Handaqlu says the violence reflects the “exclusion and marginalization” of Palestinian citizens of Israel, arguing that the state has often relegated crime and violence to simply being a product of Arab society, which “holds society responsible for a reality that is imposed on it.”

Aida Touma-Suleiman, a Palestinian member of the Knesset who actively raises the issue of crime in parliament, believes that the first step to eradicating crime in the Arab community is to overthrow the right-wing government, which she describes as “racist, fascist and criminal.”

“When the government doesn’t act… doesn’t hold criminals accountable and doesn’t prosecute them, it’s as if it’s sponsoring them,” he explains to CNN at the protest in Sakhnin. “We want them to do the work they are supposed to do and we want to give our young people the security to develop and feel like they are living.”

In December, the Israeli prime minister’s office announced plans to redirect $70 million from a program designed to promote Arab economic development to the police in order to combat “serious nationalist crime” in the Arab community.

The Mosawa Center, a group that advocates equal rights for Palestinian citizens, considered this measure a “dangerous political step” that would do nothing to combat crime.

“While the ministry does not use the budgets already available, it is pushing to cut the budgets allocated to other areas, such as education and housing, and transfer them to its own coffers,” he said in a statement. “This can only be interpreted as a deliberate policy to further impoverish Arab society and plunge it deeper into crises, including the scourge of crime.”

Back at his home in Mazra’a, Awad continues to hope for justice and says he only finds comfort in photos of his late son.

When asked if he has any hope that there will be justice for his son’s death, he sighs and points to the ceiling.

“Justice only exists up there, with God.”