When the shots rang out, the young footballer was standing in line at a butcher shop in an Arab town in northern Israel. He was hit in the leg and tried to flee, he said. But a black-clad, masked gunman pursued him and fired into his legs at close range, crushing bones, crushing muscles and severing blood vessels.
A talented midfielder, Nabil Hayek, 19, was one of four people injured in the attack in late July, victims of a wave of gun violence within Israel’s Arab communities, much of it linked to loan-granting and protection fraud of Arab crime organizations. .
These gangs have grown in size over the years, falling prey to a population that has long experienced discrimination and limited access to bank loans. But Arab officials say the situation has worsened — and many blame it, at least in part, on the right-wing government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which they say has done little to combat crimes against Arab civilians since coming to power late last year. power came.
Many people have no choice but to take out loans from the gangs and are at their mercy when they come to collect. Unemployed young men are also tempted by the easy money to become foot soldiers and gang enforcers.
“Our young people have no work; the banks don’t lend, so you go to the black market,” said Wajdi Hassan Jabarin, the deputy mayor of Umm al-Fahem, an Arab town in northern Israel where at least nine people have been killed this year. “Then you are their hostage.”
Making the situation even more volatile, a proliferation of weapons, many of which have been stolen by criminals from army bases, means that personal disputes between ordinary Palestinians often turn deadly and lead to long-lasting clan riots. And the gangs are now targeting local politicians and candidates in the run-up to the autumn municipal elections.
At least 155 Arab citizens of Israel have been killed by members of their own community so far in 2023, according to official data and the Abraham Initiatives, a Jewish-Arab organization. advocacy and monitoring group. The youngest victim this year was 1 year old.
After a slight drop in homicides under the previous administration, the number of victims has soared under Netanyahu’s coalition government, making this year the bloodiest year on record for the Palestinian Arab minority, who make up one-fifth of Israel’s population.
Many Arab officials say that despite this increasing violence, the Israeli authorities are prioritizing fighting crime in Jewish areas and neglecting the Palestinian areas.
“We can raise awareness, but our job is not to fight crime or collect weapons,” said Mr Jabarin, the deputy mayor of Umm al-Fahem. “That’s the job of the police.”
This has also been one of the deadliest years for Palestinians and Jews in the occupied West Bank. About 180 Palestinians have been killed, mainly in clashes with the Israeli army, but there are far fewer victims of criminal violence than within Israel.
Mr Hayek says he does not know why the butcher shop was targeted by the gunmen during the attack, which took place in the Galilee hills town of Sakhnin, and that he pleaded for his life when one of the attackers trained his rifle. at him.
“I yelled, ‘No! Stop! I have nothing to do with this!’ But he wasn’t listening,” Mr. Hayek whispered as he lay in a hospital bed at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem two weeks after the attack.
Mr. Hayek had a promising future on the football field. He joined Bnei Sakhnin, a popular Arab-Israeli club, at the age of six and played in the children’s and youth teams. The shooting happened two days before he was scheduled to play his first game with the adult team.
Now his future as a player is uncertain. His doctors managed to save his left leg from being amputated, but, says Ron Karmeli, head of the vascular department, “We’re fighting for him to use it right now.”
Mr. Hayek’s relatives believe he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, or that he was the victim of a mistaken identity.
“He is a footballer; he has no connection whatsoever with the crime world,” said Allam Hayek, Nabil’s father, who was on guard at the hospital.
Police said investigations into the attack continued and suspects had been detained and subsequently released by the court. Most shooting cases in the Arab community remain unsolved.
The previous governing coalition, made up of parties across the political spectrum opposed to Netanyahu, combated gun violence in Arab society with a program of arrests and weapons seizures. The ministry overseeing the police also worked with other ministries and Arab councils to address socio-economic issues, such as the severe lack of housing and youth programs, and to tackle financial crime. After years of steadily increasing homicides, the number of victims dropped from 126 in 2021 to 106 in 2022.
Arab officials and experts attribute this year’s spike in violence at least in part to what they describe as the new government’s abandonment of many of these efforts.
Far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich announced this month that he is freezing funds previously promised to local Arab councils for development programs pending the creation of a new mechanism to ensure they do not fall into the hands of “criminal criminals”. or criminals’. terrorist elements.”
In explaining the increase in homicides, Arab officials also point to internal gang warfare and revenge attacks against Arabs suspected of collaborating with the police.
Many Arabs blame part of the increase in violence on the new ultra-nationalist Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has been convicted of anti-Arab incitement and supporting a Jewish terrorist organization.
“Ben-Gvir promised governance, but he is busy tackling the crime that affects Jews, not Arabs,” says Fida Shehada, a former city councilor from Lod, a crime-ridden mixed Jewish-Arab city in central Israel , and an advocate for the victims’ families.
Mr Ben-Gvir has said he would fight crime in Arab society by hiring more police and establishing a national guard, a plan that critics say could lead to him leading a personal militia.
Nevo Cohen, a strategist who works with Mr Ben-Gvir, said the minister continued the previous administration’s anti-violence program and that his Jewish Power party had developed legislation against protection fraud. “Over time, more results will be seen in practice,” said Mr. Cohen.
Local officials said gang warfare was behind a particularly brutal June afternoon shooting that killed five people, including a schoolboy, Rami Marjiye, 15, at a car wash owned by his cousin Naim, in Yafa al-Naseriye, a village of Muslims and Christians. near Nazareth.
“It was like a war zone,” says Maher Khalyleh, head of the Yafa council. “This was a massacre.”
Many Arabs in Israel say they are afraid to testify as witnesses to such crimes or otherwise cooperate with Israeli authorities.
“If I leak information, I might be the next target,” said Imran Kinane, a former mayor of Yafa and a relative of one of the car wash victims. “If you lock up one man, this man has an entire army behind him. Then you have to deal with the whole army.”
“Jews pay taxes and get security,” he said. “We pay protection money to gangsters just for our own safety, and we don’t feel safe here at all.”
Mr Kinane said trust in the authorities was so low that people are now paying crime gangs to intervene and mediate disputes, including the notorious Jarushi clan, whose activities reportedly include extortion, contract killing and trafficking in illegal drugs and include weapons.
“There is a joke in the Arab community,” he said. “Dial 100 for the police, 101 for an ambulance and 102 for Jarushi.”
