After Hezbollah rocket kills Muslim woman, Arab town is hit with explosion of racism

SHFAR’AM, Northern Israel — Three members of Tag Meir, a volunteer organization that tries to battle racism, told two sisters of Safaa Awad, 41, who was killed by a Hezbollah rocket fired from Lebanon into northern Israel on Monday, that they were sorry for the racist comments that some Israeli Jews posted on social media following her death.

“We are so ashamed because those are not Jewish voices,” said Yossi Saidov, who had traveled from Jerusalem with Avner Reshef and Charlie Alexander to pay their condolences to Awad’s family and express their apologies. “We’ve come to tell you that we understand your loss and that we are with you.”

Najlaa Awad thanked the men and said she was “disturbed and shocked” by the negative comments she saw.

“Just because my sister had a head covering didn’t make her a terrorist,” Najlaa said.

Awad, 41, and mother of four, was an elementary school teacher who had been in a protected room in her family’s apartment on the third floor of a three-story building when Hezbollah fired five projectiles at the Galilee.

Rambam Hospital in Haifa said a total of 56 victims were brought for treatment, mostly for acute anxiety. There are four women still being treated at the hospital in light to moderate condition.

The Israel Defense Forces said interceptor missiles were launched to counter the attack and were investigating the impact.

Najlaa told the visitors from Tag Meir that the sisters grew up in a “liberal” family. They listened as Najlaa described how some of her nephews serve in the IDF.

According to the Tag Meir website, the organization pays condolence calls to victims of terror, repaints racist graffiti, and holds meetings with politicians to decrease inflammatory rhetoric.

“Others serve in the border police. I volunteered in a police program for youth for many years,” Najlaa continued. “My sister was killed by a rocket, and then we have to suffer more pain because of the hateful comments.”

After the attack on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel, killed 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 others into Gaza, Najlaa said, “It pained us because we’re Israeli citizens. ”

Then she paused and said, “We’re sick of hearing the bad. Every good word helps.”

A series of tragic loss

On October 31, Hezbollah rockets killed Mina Hasson, 60, and her son Karmi Hasson, 21, Shfar’am residents who were picking olives in a grove near the town.

For months since October 8, 2023, Hezbollah-led forces attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.

Hezbollah has since expanded its attacks to also target cities in central and northern Israel with rockets and drones.

Some 60,000 residents were evacuated from northern towns on the Lebanon border shortly after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, amid fears Hezbollah would carry out a similar attack, and increasing rocket fire by the terror group.

The attacks on northern Israel since October 2023 have resulted in the deaths of 45 civilians. In addition, 71 IDF soldiers and reservists have died in cross-border skirmishes and in the ensuing ground operation launched in southern Lebanon in late September.

Town of three faiths

Shfar’am, a sprawling town set on seven hills in the Galilee, is a mixed Arab community of some 43,000 residents. There are Muslims, Christians, and Druze, a blend of modernity and tradition, with some women in fashionable Western clothes, sporting tattoos and Converse sneakers, and others in hejabs, gabiyas and traditional white Druze veils. The streets are crowded with stores, their names in Arabic, Hebrew and English.

“We’re a town of three faiths,” said Raaf Siddiq, head of Shfar’am’s educational system. “We are a model of co-existence. People here are in hi-tech in Haifa, they work among Jews.”

He said, however, that the “racist ideology of [National Security Ministry Itamar] Ben Gvir has trickled down to other people.”

He said that he and other town residents felt they experienced two explosions: first, the rocket, and then “an explosion of racism. Racism at the time of our greatest pain. It’s very difficult to deal with racism on top of the war. We feel like we’re caught in the middle.”

Siddiq said that he teaches his children that “we don’t always have to agree, but we have to respect each other.”

After the attack on Monday, he said that no government ministers called. But since then, the town has had visits from Education Minister Yoav Kisch, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, and Knesset Member Benny Gantz. All three met with Shfar’am officials and paid condolence calls to the family.

“Even on hard days, we have to see the connections,” Siddiq said.

Shourouk Naffa, the Deputy Director of Shfar’am’s urban services department said that since the rocket explosion, the city hall has been helping people whose houses were damaged in the rocket attack find temporary housing. On Thursday morning, Naffa’s office staff was busy answering telephone calls from people who wanted to speak to a social worker or a psychologist.

Naffa said the war finally has hit her and other town residents on a personal level.

“We never really felt the war until now,” she said. “I always watch the news about the war on TV but I never thought I’d see the same images with my own eyes.”

Naffa said that when her daughters ask why there’s a war, she tries to explain that “two different countries want the same land.”

“I try not to talk politics with my children,” she said. “We work with Jews; we have Jewish friends. It’s hard.”

The Alfoar elementary school where Awad taught for 26 years is closed due to the security situation. Since Awad’s burial, relatives have gathered in one of the school’s empty classrooms where people come to pay their respects.

Visitors remarked that Awad was generous and warm, a woman who “always had a smile on her face.”

“We have to have a new set of priorities,” said Ola Anabtawi, the school principal. “We have to talk more. Make more connections. We don’t know when we’ll lose the people we love.”

Awad’s sisters spoke quietly to the visitors from Tag Meir.

“Everyone is born in God’s image,” Saidov told the sisters. “We wanted to come here to tell you that you’re not alone.”