150 Arab victims of violence since start of 2023: Two men shot dead in latest killings
Man slain in Lod, with mother lightly injured; another killed in Tuba-Zangariyye; Friday saw two more killings
Two Arab men were shot dead in separate incidents Saturday, taking the number of members of the community slain in violence since the beginning of the year to 150.
During the same period last year, 68 Arabs had been killed in violence, according to the Abraham Initiatives organization, which tracks statistics on killings in the Arab community,
In Lod, a man in his 30s was shot dead, with his mother lightly injured, police said.
The two were taken to nearby Shamir Medical Center, where the man was declared dead.
Police launched an investigation into the incident, a statement said. The circumstances of the murder were not clear.
Earlier, a 30-year-old man was shot and killed in Tuba-Zangariyye in northern Israel, and a 35-year-old man from the village checked himself into Ziv Medical Center in critical condition after being shot in the back.
The killings were the third and fourth murders of the weekend after Friday saw a 38-year-old man killed in Kafr Qara and a 23-year-old man killed in Zarzir.
The killings are part of a violent crime wave that has engulfed the Arab community in recent years. Many community leaders blame the police, who they say have failed to crack down on powerful criminal organizations and largely ignore the violence. They also point to decades of neglect and discrimination by government offices as the root cause of the problem.
This week police conducted raids in which they arrested 85 suspects and detained an additional 48 people for questioning in a large operation aimed at cracking down on violent crime in the Arab community.
But authorities have been largely powerless to stem the flow of violence.
Read: As Arab homicide rate soars, government apathy comes into focus
National Security Minister Ben Gvir of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, who ran on a ticket of fighting lawlessness, has touted his plan to use administrative detention to fight crime in the Arab community.
The controversial practice of administrative detention, currently used by the defense minister against terror suspects, allows individuals to be held without charge for six months at a time, renewable indefinitely while allowing military prosecutors to keep suspects from being able to see the evidence against them.
The State Attorney’s Office said Ben Gvir’s proposal to allow for such detention of citizens presents a “threat to democracy.”
