Two Arab men shot dead in separate incidents amid slew of murders over recent days
Victims named as Mohammed Abd Tarabieh, 28, and father of two Elias Matran, 31; killings bring homicides recorded in community since start of 2025 to 75
Two men from the Arab community were shot dead in separate incidents in northern Israel overnight Sunday, police said, bringing to 11 the number of Arab citizens killed in violent circumstances over the past several days.
Police attributed the murders to criminal motives. No arrests have been reported in either case.
Hebrew and Arabic media identified the first victim as Mohammed Abd Tarabieh, 28, who was shot in his car in the northern town of Sakhnin and declared dead at Nahariya’s Galilee Medical Center
Arabic-language news site Arab48 reported that a burning vehicle was found in an open area near the murder scene, and is thought to have been used in the crime and set alight by the perpetrator.
Arab48 and the Kan public broadcaster identified the second victim as 31-year-old Elias Matran, a married father of two, who was shot in Nazareth shortly before 7 a.m. Saturday and declared dead at the city’s English Hospital.
Kan cited acquaintances of Matran as saying he was killed by chance while on his way to work. Police confirmed that Matran had no criminal record, and are investigating who the target of the murder was, the public broadcaster said.
The murders came after police on Friday evening discovered the body of a man in a burnt-out car in the northern Arab town of Arraba, following an explosion that had rocked the neighborhood.
Earlier Friday, three men in their 30s were shot dead in the central city of Ramle. Hebrew media reported that the murders were related to the shooting that killed brothers Matin and Jamal al-Shmali, both in their 20s, less than 24 hours earlier, near an elementary school in the city’s Jawarish neighborhood.
There have been at least 75 homicides in the Arab community since the start of 2025 — a similar pace to 2024 and 2023, according to the Abraham Accords. The coexistence watchdog has recorded an unprecedented rise in violent crime in the Arab community in the first two years in office of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, whose portfolio includes the police.
Ben Gvir’s first year in office, 2023, saw murder rates in the Arab community soar to their highest ever, and roughly double what they had been the previous year. The minister had gutted a program put in place by his predecessor Omer Barlev and Arab municipal leaders to combat crime in the Arab community.
In a belated report earlier this year, Ben Gvir’s office confirmed that homicide in the Arab communities had more than doubled in 2023. His office has yet to release data for 2024.
The vast majority of Arab sector murder cases are unsolved by law enforcement, with many community leaders criticizing police for not doing enough to deter violent crime in Arab locales.
The Times of Israel Community.