{"id":56594,"date":"2026-02-10T03:32:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T08:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/palestinian-citizens-of-israel-demand-government-do-more-to-stop-crime\/10\/02\/2026\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T03:32:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T08:32:26","slug":"palestinian-citizens-of-israel-demand-government-do-more-to-stop-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/palestinian-citizens-of-israel-demand-government-do-more-to-stop-crime\/10\/02\/2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestinian citizens of Israel demand government do more to stop crime"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Weighing up his options on a Monday morning in January, Ali Zbeedat, a longtime shopkeeper from Sakhnin, a small Palestinian-majority town in Israel\u2019s north, decided he had had enough.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Earlier that day, the widespread and organised criminality that plagues Sakhnin and countless other Palestinian towns and villages across Israel had come to his door.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cWe know where you go and where you walk. We will kill you if you don\u2019t finish what you\u2019re supposed to,\u201d a message sent to his phone read. Gunmen had already targeted Zbeedat\u2019s family businesses on four separate occasions, the latest just the week before, when one of his stores had been hit by dozens of automatic rifle rounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The message was the final straw. Zbeedat shuttered his businesses, with no plan to reopen them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">His case has caught the attention of Palestinian citizens of Israel, as well as wider Israeli society.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">As word of Zbeedat\u2019s action spread, more and more businesses in Sakhnin closed their doors, protesting against the organised crime that had become endemic to their community amid what appeared to be a deliberate policy of government neglect.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">What began as protests in Sakhnin quickly galvanised public opinion against criminal gangs to levels described by commentators as \u201chistoric\u201d, with tens of thousands of people, both Palestinian and Jewish Israeli, taking to the streets of Tel Aviv and choking traffic in Jerusalem over the weekend\u00a0to demonstrate against the organised crime that has been allowed to leach the lifeblood out of Israel\u2019s remaining Palestinian communities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cIn 2025, <span>252 Palestinians were murdered in Israel<\/span>, but that doesn\u2019t tell you everything,\u201d Aida Touma-Suleiman, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament representing the left-wing Hadash-Ta\u2019al faction, who has been one of the few prominent voices to constantly speak out on the violence, said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cIt doesn\u2019t tell you about the thousands of people unable to live a normal life, or forced to pay nearly all their income for protection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThe fear and the anger are growing, but it took one very courageous man in Sakhnin to light the spark. They asked him for protection; he said, no. They tried to shoot one of his sons, so he closed his shops and said they would remain closed,\u201d she told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"mb-4 text-xl font-bold md:text-2xl\">Fertile ground<\/h2>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Palestinian citizens of Israel make up approximately 21 percent of Israel\u2019s overall population.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">They are the descendants of Palestinians who were not forced out in the Nakba of 1948, when 750,000 people fled following the establishment of the State of Israel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Palestinians who remain in Israel largely live separate lives from the rest of the population in isolated towns and villages, suffering from a lack of government funding and living as de facto second-class citizens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">To many that live in those communities, it is not that the state is actively working against them, rather it is entirely absent, observers, including Hassan Jabareen, the founder and general director of the Arab rights organisation Adalah, said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cIt\u2019s Hobbesian,\u201d he said, drawing a parallel with how the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes described human conditions without the restraining power of the state, and life in one of Israel\u2019s Palestinian communities, which he described as \u201cnasty, brutish and short\u201d, paraphrasing Hobbes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">About 38 percent of Palestinian households fall below the poverty line in Israel, many well below it, according to Israel\u2019s National Insurance Institute. The same report found that about half of all Palestinians say that whatever money they can make during the month is outstripped by what they have to spend.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"relative mb-4\">\n<div class=\"relative\"><button aria-label=\"View larger image\" class=\"group absolute bottom-0 size-full\" data-ylk=\"elm:expand;itc:1;sec:image-lightbox;slk:lightbox-open;\"><span class=\"absolute bottom-3 right-3 rounded-full bg-white p-3 opacity-100 shadow-elevation-3 transition-opacity duration-300 group-hover:block group-hover:opacity-100 md:p-[17px] lg:bottom-6 lg:right-6 lg:bg-white\/90 lg:p-5 lg:opacity-0 lg:shadow-none\"><svg viewbox=\"0 0 22 22\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"size-4 lg:size-6\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\"><path d=\"M12.372.92c0-.506.41-.916.915-.916L21 0l-.004 7.712a.917.917 0 0 1-1.832 0V3.183l-6.827 6.828-1.349-1.348 6.828-6.828h-4.529a.915.915 0 0 1-.915-.915M1.835 17.816l6.828-6.828 1.349 1.349-6.829 6.827h4.529a.915.915 0 0 1 0 1.831L0 21l.004-7.713a.916.916 0 0 1 1.831 0z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/button><dialog aria-label=\"Modal Dialog\" aria-modal=\"true\" class=\"fixed bottom-0 left-0 right-0 top-0 z-4 size-full max-h-none max-w-none bg-white hidden\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"relative text-sm mt-1 pr-2.5\">\n<p>People hold placards and light their phone torches during a demonstration against rising crime rates against Palestinian citizens of Israel [Ahmad Gharabli\/AFP]<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Unemployment is endemic, and made worse after access to the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians are controlled by Israel, but do not have Israeli citizenship, was restricted following the outbreak of Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza in 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">According to 2024 figures, only 54 percent of Palestinian men and 36 percent of Palestinian women in Israel have jobs, after already low employment levels plummeted in tandem with the genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It makes fertile ground for organised crime, Touma-Suleiman said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">From the Nakba to the present, Palestinian towns and villages in Israel have lacked police stations, she told Al Jazeera, describing how Palestinians who had fled the poverty of their villages to work on the criminal peripheries of Israeli society would return, armed with the knowledge needed to build new criminal networks in their own communities, safe from the police\u2019s prying eyes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cWe also had a lot of Arab families from the territories occupied after 1967, who had collaborated with the Israeli government, relocated here following the second Intifada [in 2005],\u201d Touma-Suleiman said, describing how this disrupted Palestinian communities in Israel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cA lot of those families are now running criminal organisations, even the police say those families are under the protection of the Shabak [Israel\u2019s internal security agency, the Shin Bet], so they can\u2019t really touch them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Al Jazeera reached out to the Israeli prime minister\u2019s office and the Shin Bet for comment, but has yet to receive a response.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"mb-4 text-xl font-bold md:text-2xl\">Poisoned harvest<\/h2>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The outcome has been organised crime on an industrial scale.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Gangs, closer to the Italian mafia in scale and reach, control much of what little commercial life can flourish in Israel\u2019s Palestinian towns and villages, confident their operations will not be interrupted by a police force headed by far-right and anti-Palestinian Minister of National Security <span>Itamar Ben-Gvir<\/span>, who himself has previously been prosecuted for supporting anti-Palestinian \u201cterror\u201d groups.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"relative mb-4\">\n<div class=\"relative\"><img alt=\"Itamar Ben-Gvir\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"770\" height=\"513\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/olp4Er5juhyRL99FRVzNfw--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTY0MDtjZj13ZWJw\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/al_jazeera_289\/4e1259489d94dda0f288f02f29c7b184\"\/><button aria-label=\"View larger image\" class=\"group absolute bottom-0 size-full\" data-ylk=\"elm:expand;itc:1;sec:image-lightbox;slk:lightbox-open;\"><span class=\"absolute bottom-3 right-3 rounded-full bg-white p-3 opacity-100 shadow-elevation-3 transition-opacity duration-300 group-hover:block group-hover:opacity-100 md:p-[17px] lg:bottom-6 lg:right-6 lg:bg-white\/90 lg:p-5 lg:opacity-0 lg:shadow-none\"><svg viewbox=\"0 0 22 22\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"size-4 lg:size-6\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\"><path d=\"M12.372.92c0-.506.41-.916.915-.916L21 0l-.004 7.712a.917.917 0 0 1-1.832 0V3.183l-6.827 6.828-1.349-1.348 6.828-6.828h-4.529a.915.915 0 0 1-.915-.915M1.835 17.816l6.828-6.828 1.349 1.349-6.829 6.827h4.529a.915.915 0 0 1 0 1.831L0 21l.004-7.713a.916.916 0 0 1 1.831 0z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/button><dialog aria-label=\"Modal Dialog\" aria-modal=\"true\" class=\"fixed bottom-0 left-0 right-0 top-0 z-4 size-full max-h-none max-w-none bg-white hidden\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"relative text-sm mt-1 pr-2.5\">\n<p>Itamar Ben-Gvir is reported to be in charge of a task force investigating the problem [File: Abir Sultan\/EPA]<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThere are hierarchies operating at a major, nationwide level,\u201d Touma-Suleiman said, \u201cThe killings are just a symptom. They have their own banking systems and give out loans,\u201d she said of a financial desert where only about 20 percent of Palestinians qualify for loans from Israeli banks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThey also deal in drugs and weapons: not just pistols, but missiles and explosives. They\u2019re embedded in the state, as well, controlling contracting companies, which means other companies bidding for work have to go through them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The outcome has been neighbourhoods unrecognisable to the Jewish Israelis who rarely venture into territory considered dangerous and unsafe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThey [Jewish Israelis] refer to the Palestinian nature or the Arab nature, and of course, not to the fact that the Israeli state stays at arm\u2019s length from the [Palestinian] enclaves and they let the murders and crime just happen,\u201d prominent Israeli sociologist Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"mb-4 text-xl font-bold md:text-2xl\">Toxic crop<\/h2>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">At one of the most recent protests against the violence, demonstrators walked through the streets of Tel Aviv, carrying banners and photos of relatives killed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Placards, reading \u201cEnough violence and murder\u201d, \u201cNo more silence\u201d, and \u201cArab Lives Matter\u201d, told of a tide of anger that even Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who had few qualms with the genocide of <span>more than 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza<\/span>, has accepted must be addressed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">On Tuesday, in light of the nationwide concern over the violence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reported to be preparing to name Ben-Gvir as the head of a task force addressing the issue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Asked to describe the contrasting childhoods of two similarly aged boys, one from an Israeli Jewish town and one from a Palestinian one, Jabareen, the Adalah director, was blunt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cOne will have safety. He will go to sleep and know that he is safe. He will go to school, and he will know that he will be OK,\u201d Jabareen said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThe other boy will not be able to sleep for the sound of guns. He will worry about being shot accidentally on his way to school, or his bus being targeted,\u201d he continued. \u201cAt school, he will worry about one of his classmates or teachers being shot. Even if he had to go to the doctor or the pharmacist, he would worry about a gang operating there and more shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/palestinian-citizens-israel-demand-government-073528021.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Weighing up his options on a Monday morning in January, Ali Zbeedat, a longtime shopkeeper from Sakhnin, a small Palestinian-majority town in<br \/><button class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/palestinian-citizens-of-israel-demand-government-do-more-to-stop-crime\/10\/02\/2026\/\">Read More &rsaquo;<\/a><\/button><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/pr0GaxIqirYFT9r6PMwXew--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD04MDA7Y2Y9d2VicA--\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/al_jazeera_289\/edf1e6128cd7f2631222e8e22360f373","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56594"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}