One year into the Hezbollah conflict, Arab Israelis confront their complicated identity
Living near the border with Lebanon, Sheik Danun leaders say extremists in the government — not the fighting over the border — make them feel disenfranchised from Israeli society

WESTERN GALILEE — As explosions shattered the air on Tuesday, Ahmed Samniya stood on his porch on the edge of the village of Sheikh Danun, staring out at the fields beneath his window.
Down below, IDF troops were firing artillery into Lebanon, 9.5 kilometers (5.9 miles) away. The loud blasts seemed to serve as exclamation points as Samniya talked about his complicated identity as an Arab Israeli — an identity that has gotten even more intricate since the conflict with Hezbollah began a year ago, last October 8.
“Just because my country has conflicts with other countries outside our border doesn’t make me an enemy,” said Samniya, director of his village’s community center.
Since last October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have 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 during the war against Hamas there.
Israel launched what it called “limited, localized, and targeted raids” on the ground in southern Lebanon on September 30, aiming to demolish Hezbollah infrastructure near the frontier, especially in the villages adjacent to Israel, to enable displaced Israeli residents of the north to return home safely.
Samniya said he’s an Israeli Arab or an Arab Israeli – both ways are correct, he believes – as well as a Bedouin.

“I bet you never saw a Bedouin drive a Tesla,” he joked, tilting his head toward the blue Tesla that stood in his driveway, and then he grew serious.
“We live in the Galilee, close to the Lebanese border, and as Israeli citizens, all of us are under fire – Jews, Muslims, Bedouins, and Druze,” Samniya said. “Rockets don’t distinguish between religion, nationality, or gender.”
However, Samniya said that the growing divisiveness within Israel compounded by the war has brought to the forefront questions of Arab Israelis’ identity and fears about their place in the country.
“I have freedom of religion here,” he said. “I have freedom of speech. My grandparents were born here. What happens outside our borders shouldn’t make me feel like I don’t belong here.”
A sleepy town that’s now sleepless
Sheikh Danun, with 3,000 residents, almost all Muslim, is set on a hill with a view of the sparkling Mediterranean in the distance.
It has always been a sleepy little village — there are no cafes or restaurants and initiatives to attract tourists have been postponed because of the war — but now it’s become a sleepless one, said Mahmod Akawi, the mayor of Sheikh Danun. It is just outside the conflict zone, so residents have not been evacuated.

The village is part of the Mateh Asher Regional Council, the largest settlement of the 32 communities. Eight of these have been evacuated, with more than 7,000 residents considered internally displaced citizens.
Residents of Arab al-Aramshe, the other non-Jewish settlement within the council that is closer to the Lebanese border, have been evacuated. Akawi took this Times of Israel reporter to see the temporary elementary school being built for Arab al- Aramshe children.
Attacks on northern Israel have resulted in the deaths of 26 civilians in Israel. In addition, 33 IDF soldiers and reservists have died in cross-border skirmishes and in the ensuing ground operation launched in southern Lebanon in late September.
Residents feel the war is being fought right there in their backyard, Akawi said. According to instructions from the IDF Home Front Command, all the schools in Sheikh Danun are closed, and there are no public events. Children have classes on Zoom, but Akawi said that one parent is required to stay at home to supervise their time on the computer. Younger children, he said, can’t use Zoom to go to kindergarten.
Two-thirds of the village’s homes do not have reinforced safe rooms, Akawi said. There are now seven temporary bomb shelters throughout the village. Residents of each neighborhood have also been instructed about which shelter they can enter in one of the schools or the kindergarten.

“Nobody can sleep at night because of the rockets,” Akawi said. “Parents don’t know what to tell their children.”
The war has also made Akawi feel that Arab Israelis are caught in the crosshairs.
A conflict against Arabs in Israel?
“I have worked in the town for 37 years in the public sector,” Akawi said as he sat in his office in the center of the town. “I’ve always been connected to people in the Knesset. I know how important it is to be good to all the country’s citizens. But now I feel that right-wing extremists led by [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben Gvir and [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich might turn the war into a conflict against the Arabs in Israel.”
A devout Muslim, a father of five, and a grandfather of 10, Akawi has a fatalistic view of life. He also has a wry sense of humor. When there’s a siren and he’s outside smoking a cigarette, he said, he comes back into his office, even though it is not a protected room. Yet he feels a deep uncertainty that no amount of humor can wrestle down.
“Arab Israelis are starting to feel like we’re considered a burden,” he said. “People here are wary that the government might go after us next.”

‘There is a danger to our existence’
On Samniya’s porch, the community center head gestured toward the hills. The rainy season hadn’t yet begun, and the earth and trees looked faded. In the distance hung a cloud of black smoke from launched rockets.
Samniya’s four children have all served in Israel’s National Service because, he said, he believes that “If I ask for rights from the country, I have to meet my responsibilities to give back to the country.”
Arabs in Israel, he said, have gone through what he called “Israelization.”
“We can’t say more than a few sentences without adding a Hebrew word,” he said. “In the supermarket, let’s say, we show the same kind of impatience.”
Arabs who stayed inside Israel after the Israeli War of Independence are sometimes called “the Arabs of 1948” by Arabs in other countries.
“They can’t understand the idea of ‘Arab Israelis,’” he said.
It is a unique identity, he said, that is far from simple. In Samniya’s living room, an Israeli news station played on the television. With his TV package, he could also choose Arabic-language stations, including from Algeria, Tunisia, and Palestine.
He said Al-Jazeera announces the news before the Israeli stations do, so he watches them both. Then he picked up a pin that he received from a memorial ceremony the previous night at the Mateh Asher Regional Council office, with the Hebrew word “Yizkor,” or remember. The pin commemorated the victims of the massacre of October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed into Israel from Gaza, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 people to Gaza.

Samniay attended the event and stood and sang “Hatikva,” the Israeli national anthem.
“The words don’t speak to me, but it’s our national anthem, and I stand out of empathy and give respect because it’s my country,” Samniya said. “I even correct my Jewish friends when they don’t say the words right.”
The talk turned again to right-wing politicians who Samniya said are getting stronger in the country.
“Their agenda and ideology put us in danger,” Samniya said. “There is a danger to our existence.”
When asked what he would say to Ben Gvir and Smotrich if given the chance, Samniya replied, “They don’t live among Arabs. Let them come to the Western Galilee where they can see people living in coexistence.”
Arab Israelis shouldn’t be pushed away, he said. Instead, they can be a bridge between two peoples.
“We can find the golden way without losing our identity,” Samniya said.
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