Five men were killed within 12 hours from Wednesday night through early Thursday, including a Druze sheikh and the son of a former mayor, and a woman was killed Thursday night, as violent crime rages unabated in Arab locales.
Amid the latest spate of killings, Police Commissioner Danny Levy warned that Israel was in a “state of national emergency.”
In a situational assessment with senior officers on Thursday morning, Levy said police were underequipped to deal with the issue. Law enforcement cannot do its job when “our hands are tied, our ears are muffled, and our eyes are blindfolded,” he said.
Levy said police were doing everything they could to rein in violent crime but claimed officers lacked the technological tools they needed. Furthermore, the courts, he said, must be harsher in their sentencing and allow police to use administrative measures against suspects, such as allowing police to restrict certain suspects’ freedom of movement and expression on the basis of confidential evidence. He also urged state prosecutors to expedite the filing of indictments.
Additionally, Levy called on local politicians and religious figures in Arab society to unequivocally denounce the violence, stressing that many of the victims are innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of disputes between gangs and warring families.
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“To win this fight, we need a united front, a synchronized national effort from everyone,” Levy said.
File: Police chief Danny Levy at the Jerusalem Pride Parade, June 6, 2025 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
The blood-soaked night began Wednesday after sundown, when 48-year-old Mohammad Qassem was shot point-blank outside a corner store in a bustling area in Fureidis, a town south of Haifa, by a masked man who then fled on an electric scooter.
Passersby rushed to the victim as he bled out on the sidewalk. According to Qassem’s brother, Ali, he had left the house to buy a pack of cigarettes.
Police arrived at the crime scene to find residents protesting. Footage in the wake of the shooting showed residents clashing with cops, as officers beat some of them with batons.
Harrowing footage from one of the five homicides to rock Arab society within just 12 hours
In Fureidis, Mohammad Qassem, 48, is shot point blank by a man who rides away on his scooter. Passersby find the victim bleeding out on the ground, the assailant has not yet been caught pic.twitter.com/NtWFbJiUUG
— charlie summers (@cbsu03) February 12, 2026
In Rahat at around 2 a.m, 22-year-old Mukhtar Abu Mdeighem, the son of the Bedouin city’s former mayor Atta Abu Mdeighem, was shot dead in his car.
At his son’s funeral, the former mayor confessed his complete lack of faith in law enforcement’s handling of violent crime. While he urged the state to “wake up,” he added that “we in Arab society must also deal with crime. We need a solution, not to wait around for the government.
“The government will act when it wants to, because if they want someone from Iran, they go and get him. But criminals here? Efforts are required,” he said, according to the Walla news site.
Eulogizing his slain son, the mourning father said the young man “was dear, he ran a kiosk, he had plans. He wanted to study and get married. But the boy is gone.”
Speaking to the Ynet news site, he noted that assailants had targeted his son previously.
“The first time they shot at him, it was around four months ago… he escaped by a miracle and God granted him life. There wasn’t so much as a scratch on him, but the business was destroyed. This time they shot at him when he was driving in the city in his car, not far from his home,” the ex-mayor said.
On Thursday morning, police arrested three suspects in the killing and planned to bring them to the Beersheba Magistrate’s Court to hold them in custody. They were the only suspects apprehended in connection with any of the five shootings as of Thursday afternoon.
In the Druze town of Yarka, Sheikh Najib Abu Rish was killed while heading to work at around 4 a.m. Thursday. He left behind a wife and four children.
After sunrise, Farid Abu Mubarak, 20, was shot on the main thoroughfare of Segev Shalom, a Bedouin town in southern Israel.
In footage of the lethal shooting, a man was seen crouching behind a black car as rapid gunfire was heard. A silver hatchback sped away soon after the gunfire died down.
توثيق خطير للانفلات الامني في البلدات العربية❗️في الفيديو المرفق يوثق جريمة القتل التي وقعت قبل قليل في شقيب السلام:”حرب شوارع”. pic.twitter.com/JghsWIU23E
— |فرات نصار|פוראת נסאר|FURAT NASSAR (@nassar_furat) February 12, 2026
In Lod, 65-year-old Hussein Abu Raqiq, a professional cleaner, was shot and killed as he headed to work.
The man’s son, Alaa, told Ynet that his father was a straitlaced man who always came home right after finishing work for the day. The mourning son also spoke harshly of law enforcement.
“This area is full of police, where are they? Their only job making noise, sitting in their cars and fiddling with their phones. When there are shootings, you can never find them,” he said.
Police arrived at the scene of the crime in Lod and launched an investigation, but have not yet arrested any suspects.
Security forces inspect the scene where a man was shot dead in Lod on February 12, 2026. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)
On Thursday night, police launched another murder investigation after a woman was shot to death in the northern city of Tamra.
A police statement said the woman, in her 50s, was critically wounded and later pronounced dead after being taken to a local hospital.
Police added that they were looking into a motive for the shooting, which they described as crime-related.
This year has now seen 47 Arab citizens killed violently within 43 days. Last year was the worst on record for violent crime in Arab society, with 252 homicide deaths. But 2026 stands to be even deadlier if killings continue at their current pace.
Local politicians and religious figures have denounced the crime sweeping their communities, but most place blame on law enforcement, accusing police of neglecting to solve homicides when the victims are Arab.
Violent killings have run rampant in Arab cities and towns over the past decade, but the issue worsened considerably in 2023 when the number of murders jumped to 244, doubling the previous year’s figure of 116. The tally dipped slightly in 2024 before reaching new heights last year. The previous record high, set in 2022, had been 126 murders.