9-year-old girl shot dead amid family feud in Arara; police arrest father as suspect

A nine-year-old girl was shot and killed in the northern Arab town of Arara on Wednesday, first responders and police said, when an apparent feud between children in the family escalated into violence among the adults at a holiday gathering.

The victim, Laila Jahjah, was shot at a family gathering during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. Police arrested the girl’s father, suspecting he shot her by accident while aiming for his brothers.

According to the Magen David Adom emergency service, Jahjah was brought to its medics at Karkur Junction. They took her to Hillel Yaffe Hospital in Hadera, where she was pronounced dead by medical staff.

Menashe Precinct police chief Cdr. Roni Fares said in a statement to press at the scene that the shooting stemmed from a “fight between children in the family, in a prior incident from a week ago.”

Fares said police believe “the girl was injured by gunfire from her father, who shot at his brothers who were inside the house.”

The officer said that the victim’s relatives appeared to have tried to destroy evidence of the shooting, and later added that police were attacked when they arrived in the area.

“When we arrived at the scene, the scene was already rinsed,” he said, saying that the apparent attempt to destroy evidence “damages the investigation.”

“To clean a [crime] scene is to be an accomplice to crime,” he said.

Meanwhile, Channel 12 reported that the father attacked a policeman when he came to the house, in an effort to keep him from seizing a hose another relative had been using to wash the scene.

“This girl wasn’t guilty, and over what [was she killed]? A fight between brothers. [Then], when the police come to perform their duty, they attack the police,” Fares said.

According to Hebrew outlets, police have not yet located the gun used in the shooting.

Jahjah is the 116th Arab to be killed in violent circumstances in Israel, according to a toll tracked by the Abraham Initiatives coexistence watchdog. The toll is 21% higher than it was at the same period in 2025, which was itself the bloodiest year on record.

Nihaya Wishahi, a candidate for the left-wing Hadash party who resides in Arara, called the preponderance of illegal firearms in Arab towns and cities an “existential danger” to the community.

“When weapons circulate without supervision, without enforcement and without deterrence, the victims are not only ‘criminals’ but also innocent boys and girls,” she said.

Critics, including the Abraham Initiatives, have blamed the soaring homicide rates in Arab society on National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, accusing him of neglecting law enforcement in Arab localities. The Arab homicide rate more than doubled in 2023, his first full year in office, and has stayed in the same area since.

“A nine-year-old girl was shot to death in broad daylight in the State of Israel, under the auspices of the Israeli government’s neglect,” the organization said in a statement. “Everyone who isn’t fighting against the neglect of Arab society at the hands of the government and police is a partner to this murder, and to the murders that will follow.”