Police have solved just 12% of homicides in Arab communities, data shows

By Charlie Summers

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1 July 2026, 4:34 pm

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Police at the scene of an attempted stabbing attack in Lod, central Israel, July 1, 2026. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)

Police have solved just 12 percent of homicides in Arab society so far this year, according to new data from the Abraham Initiatives watchdog, as violent crime continues to surge in cities and towns across Israel.

The organization in a report released last night says that the community has seen 144 homicide deaths in the first half of the year, comprising 140 Arab citizens and four Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, who are subject to the authority of the Israel Police despite lacking citizenship.

Since then, the number of Arab sector homicide deaths has risen to 147, following a lethal car bombing yesterday and a pair of unrelated shootings that left two young men dead this morning in northern Israel.

“After the sharp rise in the number of victims in 2025, crime continues to run rampant in 2026 as well, and the number of victims in this current half-year period is larger than the number of victims in the first half of 2025,” the group says.

Last year was the deadliest on record for Arab society in Israel, as the community mourned 252 people slain in violent criminal circumstances. The vast majority of Arab sector homicides went unsolved in 2025 as well, with police managing to crack just ten percent of cases, the monitor said.

The homicide rate in Arab society doubled in 2023 and continued to rise in the years following, save for a short dip in 2024, before reaching a new peak in 2025.

The massive uptick, which coincided with the start of Itamar Ben Gvir’s term as national security minister, has alarmed Arab community leaders, many of whom attribute the sharp rise to ineffectiveness, if not outright negligence, of law enforcement.

Police, for their part, have claimed that they are doing all they can to combat violent crime. Senior officers, including police chief Danny Levy, have placed blame on state prosecutors and the court system, and in other instances said that officers lack the technological means to efficiently collect evidence.