Bedouin leaders protest exclusion from emergency meeting on spiking Negev violence

Heads of Bedouin locales in the Negev are incensed after they were excluded from an emergency meeting on spiraling violence in the region, mainly within Arab society, that took place in Beersheba’s City Hall earlier today.

The meeting was held in the wake of a spate of violent incidents to rock the southern Israeli region, including a Thursday shooting in the Bedouin city of Rahat that left two dead, and reports of heavy gunfire near Jewish towns at the start of last week, which prompted National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to drive south and tour several areas in the Negev.

In a Facebook post announcing the meeting earlier today, Beersheba mayor Ruvik Danilovich called violent crime “civilian terror” and warned that “the next October 7 is at the doorstep.” Also attending were leading local Jewish politicians, including mayors and chiefs of local councils.

The politicians plan to submit a document of principles to the government and security agencies, demanding the state deal with rising crime.

Absent from the meeting were the nine Arab local council heads in the Negev, despite the fact that the violence is concentrated in their jurisdictions, with their constituencies bearing its brunt.

“It saddens us that this is the behavior; we expect to cooperate with all the Negev local authorities and for them to also deal with the Bedouin sector. We don’t look upon this favorably,” Rahat mayor Talal al-Kernawi tells The Times of Israel. “We’re also in favor of safeguarding governance in the Negev.”

Speaking of last week’s deadly shooting, which took place amid a dispute between cousins, al-Kernawi says that guns need to be swept from the streets of the city, and laments the “tremendous amounts” of army-grade weaponry that has fallen into the hands of criminals.

“It’s terrifying, we need governance in this matter to defeat the spread of arms,” he says.

Speaking to Walla, the head of Lakiya’s local council says that southern mayors and council chairmen “share the same fate.”

“When such an important meeting is held and we are not informed, it is simply the exclusion of us,” he tells the Hebrew outlet.