Protest over Arab crime wave briefly blocks traffic on Tel Aviv’s Ayalon Highway

Dozens of protesters and relatives of homicide victims blocked traffic on Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv this morning in a demonstration over the spike in violent crime besetting Arab society.

The demonstrators had been protesting against the “abandonment of Arab society to violence and crime” by the government, the left-wing Standing Together movement, which organized the protest, says.

They were quickly dispersed by police. No arrests were reported.

“The police have the tools to deal with the situation and we are demanding that they make a decision to end the protection [racketeering] and the criminal organizations,” the movement says in a statement.

The protest is held as frustration mounts in Arab society over deadly criminal violence that has claimed 21 lives less than a month into 2026.

One of the protesters on the highway is seen holding a sign with the face of Abdallah Awad, a pediatrician from the northern village of Mazra’a who was killed last year at a clinic in Kafr Yasif. The sign reads, “The blood of Abdallah cries out.”