What happened: Two Israeli Arab women were shot and killed on Wednesday in separate incidents in the north.
- First, 26-year-old Yasmin Mahmid, a mother of two, was shot in her car in the Arab town of Ar’ara. Later, 45-year-old Salam Hajjaj was shot in Shfaram, an Arab city near Haifa, also in her car.
- Wednesday also saw the discovery of the body of an Arab-Israeli man in his 40s in the northern city of Umm al-Fahm, seemingly killed days previously.
- In response, Central Police Commander Avi Bitton said yesterday that officers were too busy policing anti-government demonstrations to be effective in curbing violence in Arab communities.
- “These officers… meant to deal with crime in the Arab community, from where are they taken? Ultimately these officers belong to police stations and special units, and they are coming to deal with incidents of public order instead of crime,” he told Army Radio.
- Bitton’s comments drew an angry rebuke from leaders of the protest movement.
Context: Wednesday’s killings brought the number of people murdered in Arab society since the start of 2023 to at least 193. In comparison, the total figure for the whole of 2022 was 116.
- July 2023 saw a record 28 murders – a record then equalled in September.
- While some Arab leaders and community activists blame the police, Israeli authorities, and, in particular, Ben Gvir for neglecting law enforcement in Arab communities, authorities also point to a rise in the levels of organised crime and the frequent reluctance of some in Arab society to cooperate with police.
- Coexistence NGO The Abraham Initiatives claims that a mere 10 percent of this year’s murders have been solved, with its director Thabet Abu Rass recently noting that “people are afraid to go outside. It’s a very dangerous situation right now.”
- The latest incident follows the shocking events of 27th September, when six people were killed in two attacks in northern Israel, five of them in a mass shooting in Basmat Tab’un, a Bedouin town east of Haifa. The victims were two brothers aged 14 and 17, a mother in her 40s with her 25-year-old son, and a family relative in his 20s. Israeli police Kobi Shabtai called the scene one of the “most abhorrent events we have ever encountered.”
- The mass killing was in apparent response to the murder earlier that day of Atef Abu Kalib, a 50-year-old Haifa resident and junkyard owner.
- Another high profile murder occurred on August 21st, when Abed Rahman Kashua, director-general of the municipality of Tira, an Arab-majority town in central Israel and a senior figure in Israel’s Southern Islamic Movement was shot and killed.
- In early September, Prime Minister Netanyahu convened a government subcommittee on advancing the fight against crime in the Arab sector in Israel.
- The prime minister promised speedy legislative progress for a package of expedited legislation for advancing the fight against crime in the Arab sector, designed to give greater technological and administrative tools to the Israel Police, as well as laws to enable more severe economic punishments and the protection of the public against organised crime.
- Roi Kahlon, previously an official in the State Attorney’s Office focussing on economic crimes, heads the task force and pledged to combat “a wave of crime and violence that does not distinguish between woman or man, young or old, citizen or elected official, candidate or head of council.”
- During the summer, Netanyahu indicated that he wished the Shin Bet to become more involved in the fight against crime, despite the intelligence agency indicating that this would be counter-productive and outside its scope of operations.
- In parallel to the formation of the subcommittee, the Israeli police announced that they had drawn up a list of 414 Arab-Israeli targets identified as crime bosses and that tax authorities had presented the list’s members with forms demanding explanation for how they had accumulated their wealth.
- Another front in the battle against organised crime is the illegal weapons trade. A 2020 Knesset report estimated the total number of illegal firearms in Israel to be 400,000. In September, police revealed that since the start of the year they had confiscated 1,233 pistols, 218 rifles, 493 improvised weapons, 54 shotguns, 453 different types of grenades, 231 explosive charges, and 166,176 rounds of ammunition.
- A previous programme, “Safe Track”, instituted under the Bennett-Lapid government and spearheaded by deputy police minister and veteran officer Yoav Segalovitz was dropped by the current government. This, despite its seeming have an impact on targeting the most dangerous of the organised criminal elements: 2022 marked the first time that the death toll from murder had dropped since 2014.
- One of Safe Track’s tactics was to address the flow of money to organised crime via government and local authority tenders.
Looking ahead: Current police commissioner Kobi Shabtai is due to finish his term in January 2024.
- Central Police Commander Bitton has recently announced his candidacy to replace him. Bitton spearheaded a special task force to combat crime in the mixed cities of Lod and Ramla.