Former mayor of Kafr Yasif arrested at protest against police inaction amid deadly crime wave

Police arrest the former mayor of Kafr Yasif during a protest in the northern Arab town over the police’s handling of the violent crime besetting the community.

Law enforcement says the politician, Shadi Shweiry, a prominent figure in the left-wing Hadash party, was arrested after he attacked police officers. Party activists claim the opposite, that Shweiry was violently arrested by police in what they dub “an attack on the right to protest.”

A brief clip of the incident shared by police shows a Border Police officer shoving Shweiry into a dense crowd of protesters, upon which Shweiry lunges back with a wooden sign pole, knocking a recording device from the hands of the officer filming.

He will appear in court later tonight, where police are expected to request an extension of his remand.

One of the organizers of the demonstration was also detained, and later released from the police station, for “violating the conditions of the protest,” police say. Hadash says the woman arrested is another party member, who directs the party’s activities in Acre and the surrounding area.

The demonstration on Route 70 drew hundreds of protesters from Kafr Yasif and neighboring towns, who blocked the major road despite the police’s attempts to prevent them from doing so.

كفر ياسيف: متظاهرون يغلقون شارع 70 الرئيس خلال وقفة منددة باستفحال الجريمة وتواطؤ الشرطة

تصوير: إيناس مريح (عرب 48)
التفاصيل: https://t.co/fZ1BORyytq pic.twitter.com/0y8u2P1msD

— موقع عرب 48 (@arab48website) January 24, 2026

The protesters, several of them bereaved families of homicide victims, chanted, “stop the crime” and “our children’s blood isn’t cheap.” Frustration in Arab society has been mounting in recent days over the deadly gang violence that, in less than a month into the new year, has claimed 21 lives.

“At the same time he [Shweiry] was arrested, there was another murder in Nazareth,” says Hadash-Ta’al MK Ofer Kassif, who attended the protest. “But there, the police aren’t present; they are present against the protesters, not against the crime.”

He is referring to this evening’s fatal shooting of 37-year-old Jamal Mazawi, who was pronounced dead at the hospital after being shot just outside the major Arab city.

Arab cities and towns throughout Israel went on a day-long strike Thursday, decrying police’s failure to stem near-daily homicides. A massive protest took place in the northern city of Sakhnin that afternoon, drawing tens of thousands of Arab citizens.