A masked assailant shot the mayor of Arraba on Sunday, injuring him and another local politician while they were dining with colleagues at a restaurant in the northern Arab city.
Mayor Ahmad Nassar and Anwar Yassin, the city’s deputy mayor who also serves as the head of its popular committee, both sustained moderate injuries in the ambush, according to first responders.
Footage of the shooting picked up by a security camera showed Nassar, Yassin and several other men sitting and chatting at a table in Taksim Bakery, located on the city’s main thoroughfare.
Seconds passed before a masked man entered the shop with a handgun. The table got up in a panic after realizing what was going on. The assailant shot several times at the men as they tried to take cover.
Nassar is seen falling over into a table after being shot, covering his head as the gunman flees the scene.
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Police said they had launched an investigation into the incident and were searching for suspects. No arrests were immediately reported.
The mayor of Arraba, an Arab city in northern Israel, was targeted in a shooting tonight alongside his deputy. Both were injured in the ambush.
Last winter, police raised Nassar’s threat level from 4 to 6 (the highest possible) after criminals shot at his house pic.twitter.com/t8v47bYa9g
— charlie summers (@cbsu03) March 8, 2026
The city’s popular committee — a local body in many Arab towns that coordinates between residents and municipal leadership, often taking the lead on organizing protests — decried the incident as a “grave criminal act” and “unacceptable attack on public figures who work to serve the city’s people.”
In July, Nassar attended a Knesset committee to discuss the mortal danger posed by criminal organizations against Arab mayors in Israel. He told lawmakers that police had raised his threat level from 4 to 6 — the highest possible — after criminals shot at his house several times.
Man dies from wounds sustained in Jaffa shooting
Separately, a young man succumbed to his wounds on Sunday after being shot and severely injured in Jaffa last week, police said.
The victim, a man in his 20s named Mahmoud Daqqa, was taken to Holon’s Wolfson Medical Center after assailants opened fire on him on Wednesday.
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▪️נורה שבוע שעברוהיום נקבע מותו בבית חולים. אחיו, מוחמד, נרצח לפני 3 חודשים בנסיבות דומות. pic.twitter.com/RWOVsBKTbB
— iam (@anaesmituna) March 8, 2026
Two suspects were arrested in connection with the incident, which police described as a conflict between criminals.
A court ruled that the pair will remain in custody until Wednesday at least, as police in the Tel Aviv District’s investigations and intelligence division continue to investigate the shooting.
According to the Arab48 news site, the slain man is the brother of Muhammad Daqqa, a 28-year-old man who was gunned down earlier this year in Pisgat Ze’ev, a Jewish neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
Since the beginning of the year, 63 members of the Arab community have been killed in violent criminal incidents. The high death toll follows the minority’s bloodiest year to date, which saw 252 violent killings over the course of 2025.
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