3 slain in north as violent crime continues to surge in Arab community

Three men were shot dead in Suweid Hamira in the Lower Galilee region, police said Thursday, as violent crime continues to spiral out of control in Arab locales across the country.

Two of the men were found dead with gunshot wounds, Magen David Adom medics reported. A third man was critically injured and taken to Rambam Medical Center, where he later died of his wounds.

They were identified in media reports as Ibrahim Suweid, 64, his son Ishak Suweid, 28, and a family relative, Bassal Suweid, 25.

Police said the shooting was related to organized crime feuds.

The incident started when shots were fired at a car that was being driven by Bassal Suweid, the Ynet outlet reported. Ishak, who was in the car with him, sprang out and ran back to his nearby home, where he knocked on the door asking to be let in. His father, Ibrahim, opened the door, but they were both then hit by gunfire.

All three of the men are from the Suweid family, which is in a bloody feud with the Haldi crime family that has over the years claimed the lives of 24 people, Kan news reported.

Israel Police Commissioner Daniel Levy visited the site where he consulted with senior police officers “to lay down actions for further dealing with the continued friction between criminal gangs,” the force said in a statement.

The slayings brought the number of deaths from violence in the Arab Israeli community since the beginning of the week to eight. The toll since the start of the year stands at 35, according to the Abraham Initiatives, which monitors violence in the community.

“We were suddenly told about the catastrophe,” Mahmoud Suweid, a family relative, told Ynet. “They shot the father in the entrance to his home.”

“The country must wake up,” he said, calling on the prime minister and interior minister to make a condolence visit to the family and to “apologize to them that they couldn’t protect the lives of their citizens.”

Suweid predicted that if the matter is not addressed, then violent crime will spill over from the Arab to the Jewish community, where “it will have a great cost.”

On Tuesday night, three men from the central Arab Israeli town of Tira were killed in a highway shooting. Hours earlier, a 26-year-old Arab Israeli man was shot dead in I’billin, in the second such incident in the northern town in under a day.

Responding to the Tuesday killings, President Isaac Herzog said Thursday the deadly violence in the Arab community is a “national emergency” that impacts the country’s security.

“This is not a ‘community statistic,’ this is a painful Israeli tragedy,” Herzog said. “It’s time to wake up. The blood spilled on the streets of Arab society is the blood of the country’s citizens, and the rampant crime is a clear and immediate danger to the security of all of Israeli society. Yes, all of it!

“This is a national emergency. This violence will not stop within the borders of this or that village — it is a disease that gnaws at the foundations of us all. The law enforcement system and the political echelon must join hands,” he said.

Last year was Arab society’s deadliest year on record, with 252 people killed in violent incidents. Many Arab leaders accuse law enforcement of neglect.

The proliferation of deadly crime has sparked protests in Arab cities and towns over the past two weeks, which reached a high point over the weekend with a mass Arab-Jewish protest in Tel Aviv demanding the government rein in the violence.

Some have blamed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who oversees police, for the worsening situation. Though deadly violence was on the rise even before he took office in 2023, the homicide rate in Arab society doubled and has continued to rise since. When he took office, Ben Gvir canceled a major plan to fight Arab crime set in motion by the previous government.