MEE Staff
Middle East Eye / August 9, 2023
Two 20-year-old men are thought to have been shot as part of a gang dispute, with police accused of complicity as murder rate for Palestinian citizens of Israel reaches record high.
Two Palestinian men were killed in the early hours of Wednesday morning in a drive-by shooting in southern Israel.
Sharif Anees Sheikh al-Eid and Ibrahim Nidal Sheikh al-Eid, both aged 20 and from the Palestinian Bedouin town of Rahat, were driving on Route 40 near the Lehavim Junction in southern Israel when suspects opened fire from another moving vehicle.
They were taken to Beersheba’s Soroka Medical Centre in critical condition before being declared dead at dawn on Wednesday morning.
The number of Palestinians killed in Israel this year has now reached 144, a record high. This is in contrast to 2022, when 116 were killed and 2021, when 126 Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed.
In recent months, Palestinian citizens of Israel have denounced police “complicity” amid a record-high murder rate in their community.
Mohammad Barakeh, a former member of parliament in Israel and head of the High Follow-Up Committee, an umbrella civil society organization representing Israel’s Palestinian citizens, told Middle East Eye earlier this year that Israeli authorities are turning a blind eye to the issue.
“There is a frightening increase in the size of crime gangs in Palestinian society and victims are falling one after the other,” he said. “Israel is pretending as if the matter does not concern it.”
Israeli police have opened an investigation into the murders but have so far made no arrests. Police told local media that their initial findings indicated that the shooting was the result of a long-running dispute between gang families in Rahat.
Palestinians in Israel have long complained of discrimination and police inaction against violence and crime that disproportionately affects their communities.
Israeli government complicity
Palestinian citizens of Israel are the descendants of the native population displaced by Zionist militias as part of the creation of Israel in 1948.
For decades, they have suffered under discriminatory laws and practices imposed by the Israeli state.
According to the Abraham Initiatives, crime and violence in the community are a result of “under-policing and tense relations with the Israeli police”.
The non-profit organization says 50 percent of overall violent crime in the country affects Palestinians, even though they comprise only 20 percent of Israel’s population.
The presence of illegal weapons in Palestinian towns is rampant, with gangs – involved in the drug and arms trade, prostitution and other crimes – taking advantage.
Representatives of the Palestinian population say they have seen enough evidence to suggest that Israeli police deliberately turn a blind eye to the illegal smuggling of arms.
“This is based on accusations made by some Israeli officials against each other in regards to providing protection to gang leaders and slowing investigations,” said Raed Salah, a prominent religious leader and a Palestinian citizen of Israel.
“The position taken by Israeli institutions on how to deal with this tragedy is suspicious,” Salah, who is the head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, said.
Israeli police officials dismiss claims suggesting they are complicit. In 2021, the police inaugurated a department dedicated to fighting crime in the Arab community and “restoring security to the streets”.
The department was dismantled earlier this year as the crime rate continued to spike.
