Residents of some of Israel’s neighborhoods with the highest crime and violence rates say they no longer feel safe letting their children walk alone.
Following the release of nationwide crime data, residents from Be’er Sheva’s Dalet neighborhood, Tel Aviv’s Shapira neighborhood and Ashdod’s Quarter Bet described daily fear, break-ins, harassment and drug-related crime.
“I can’t let my children be free,” said Efrat Tahar, a resident of Be’er Sheva’s Dalet neighborhood. “They accompany each other.”
Tahar said residents pay a security levy through municipal taxes but do not see enough patrols or police presence. She said a man recently harassed her son on his way to and from school, and despite a police complaint, she still sees him in the area.
Still, she said she does not want to leave.
“This is where my father grew up,” she said. “I don’t want to leave. I want the situation to change.”
In Tel Aviv’s Shapira neighborhood, a resident identified only as A. said the situation has deteriorated over the past seven years. He said a foreign youth gang known as SSQ, which has recently drawn public attention, is only part of the problem.
“The neighborhood is flooded with drug addicts,” he said. “There are five or six thefts and break-ins a day.”
He said his building had eight break-ins or vandalism incidents in the past year and a half. His children, including a 13-year-old, cannot walk or play basketball alone in the neighborhood, he said.
He criticized police and municipal patrols for responding only after serious incidents and then disappearing.
“We have been begging for years for patrols,” he said. “Once in a while, when disaster strikes, a convoy of Border Police vehicles arrives as if they are conquering Gaza, and then they disappear and leave us alone.”
Meital Kovalsky, a mother of five from Ashdod’s Quarter Bet, described life in the neighborhood as “an indescribable nightmare.” She said her daughters must cross a park to reach school, and she stays on a video call with them to make sure they arrive safely.
She said police come daily, remove drug users from the area and then leave, only for them to return hours later.
“People approach us in the street, demand money and sometimes threaten us or chase us,” she said.
Kovalsky said she would leave the neighborhood if she could, though her children, who grew up there, do not want to move.