A new criminal episode has taken place in northern Israel. Five people belonging to the Israeli Arab minority were shot dead in a car wash. This “criminal” incident took place in Yafia, an Arab town west of Nazareth, according to a police statement, which said that a search was underway to apprehend the murderers.
Police spokesman Eli Levy told the Kan public broadcaster that “one or more people” opened fire on a group of men at the scene. He did not provide further details due to the ongoing investigation. This shooting brings to 96 the number of Israeli Arabs killed since the beginning of the year.
A police official later said the incident was most likely part of a gang war. Maher Khaliliya, head of the local council of Yafia, for his part called the shooting a “massacre” by blaming the police, accused of laxity. The city is “in solidarity with the families of the victims”, he told AFP, stressing that he had no information on the motives for the shooting.
Experts say Arab gangs have accumulated large amounts of weapons over the past two decades and are involved in activities such as drug, arms and human trafficking, prostitution, extortion and money laundering.
Israeli Arabs, descendants of Palestinians who remained on their lands when Israel was created in 1948, represent around 20% of the country’s population. They say they are victims of discrimination compared to the Jewish majority and believe that the police and the authorities are lax in protecting them and investigating the violence.
At the end of May, elected officials and representatives of this community demonstrated in Jerusalem to ask the government to strengthen security. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced his decision to form a steering committee, following a meeting with Arab lawmakers, to find “solutions to the wave of killings in Arab society”.
On Thursday, he reaffirmed his determination to “stop this series of murders” by relying in particular on the Shin Bet, the internal security agency, which does not normally investigate criminal cases. Earlier in the day, a 30-year-old man and a 3-year-old girl were injured in a shooting in Kafr Kanna, another Arab town north of Nazareth.
Roni Halon, a reporter with the Nazareth-based Radio Nas station, said the Yafia shooting occurred while a police helicopter was flying over the town looking for the perpetrators of the Kafr Kanna attack. Two masked men arrived on motorbikes and opened fire on men present in the car wash, the journalist told AFP from the scene.