{"id":275008,"date":"2026-02-05T07:35:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T07:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/275008\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T07:35:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T07:35:16","slug":"three-men-shot-dead-in-northern-israel-as-violence-grips-arab-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/275008\/","title":{"rendered":"Three men shot dead in northern Israel as violence grips Arab sector"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three men were shot and killed early Thursday in the northern Arab town of Sawaed Hamira, police and emergency services said, in the latest deadly incident amid a surge of violent crime in Israel\u2019s Arab community.<\/p>\n

Two of the victims, both in their 30s, were pronounced dead at the scene. A third man, about 50 years old, was rushed in critical condition to Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, where doctors later declared him dead.<\/p>\n

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The scene of the triple homicide in Sawaed Hamira <\/p>\n

(Photo: Magen David Adom)<\/p>\n

The Magen David Adom emergency service said it received a report of the shooting at 6:55 a.m. Paramedic Anwar Ka\u2019abia and EMT Mustafa Shahadeh said they arrived to find three men, who were on their way to work, lying unconscious with gunshot wounds, without pulses or signs of breathing.<\/p>\n

The killings come as despair deepens among the country\u2019s Arab citizens, who have been grappling with an unrelenting wave of gun violence. Since the start of 2026, at least 33 people have been murdered in Arab towns and cities, according to figures cited by community leaders, a toll widely expected to rise further.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried protests, strikes and marches \u2014 it\u2019s like treading water,\u201d said Dr. Walid Nasser, deputy mayor of the central Arab city of Tira. \u201cWe saw no results. The only option left is to shut everything down and stop participating in anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crisis has been discussed repeatedly in government, Knesset and police forums. President Isaac Herzog addressed the issue last week during a visit to the northern Arab city of Sakhnin, calling the fight against violence in Arab communities a \u201ctop national priority.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Tel Aviv rally against violent crime surge in Arab sector <\/p>\n

(Photo: Yariv Katz)<\/p>\n

But many residents say they have lost hope. \u201cEvery time I leave home to shop, I thank God if I return alive,\u201d said a resident of Nazareth. \u201cPeople live with one thought \u2014 either you keep living, or you end up in a grave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond the statistics, families of victims describe lives shattered by loss and the lack of justice. Walid Hamouda of the northern town of Jadeidi-Makr said his son, a municipal engineer, was murdered in 2024 and the case remains unsolved.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time I ask the police about my son\u2019s murder case, the answer is always unclear,\u201d he said. \u201cIf a Jewish engineer had been murdered, we would have seen rapid developments. We live in a constant state of anxiety after every killing. When engineers, doctors, sheikhs, children and women are murdered, it means security has vanished.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similar pain was voiced by Assil Qassem, whose son was shot dead this week near Kfar Warburg in central Israel. \u201cThis murder shattered our lives,\u201d he said. \u201cI never expected that one day I would lose my only son. I raised him for 20 years, and they took his life in seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fatma Hijazi from the Galilee town of Mazra\u2019a said she frequently visits the mother of her neighbor, Dr. Abdullah Awad, who was killed last year. \u201cThe mother cries for him nonstop,\u201d Hijazi said. \u201cIt reached a point where his photos were taken down from the walls because she wakes up at night and talks to him. Our situation is extremely dangerous \u2014 murder has entered every home. Every day I wake up and pray that I return to my family healthy, because people leave and come back dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Anger in the Arab community is largely directed at the police, whom many accuse of failing to solve cases or deter crime. Jamal Zahalka, former lawmaker and head of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, blamed National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the police.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number of victims has risen during Ben-Gvir\u2019s term,\u201d Zahalka said. \u201cI don\u2019t understand how someone who supported the slogan \u2018Death to Arabs\u2019 can serve as minister.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zahalka said protests and car convoys like those held in Tel Aviv last weekend would continue, and that the committee would attempt mediation between feuding families to stem the bloodshed.<\/p>\n

For many residents, however, the focus remains painfully simple: surviving long enough not to become the next victim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three men were shot and killed early Thursday in the northern Arab town of Sawaed Hamira, police and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-275008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}