A man was shot and killed Monday afternoon in the northern city of Tamra, marking the 50th homicide since the start of the year in a surge of deadly violence affecting Arab communities.
Medical teams pronounced Jamil Diab dead at the scene after he was shot in the head. Police said officers launched a search for suspects and opened an investigation.
Authorities suspect the killing was an act of revenge linked to the fatal shooting last Thursday of Wafaa Awad, 55, a grandmother of 18, who was struck by gunfire while hanging laundry inside her home in Tamra.
According to the investigation, a gunman opened fire at the family’s car and then toward the entrance of the house. Several bullets penetrated the home, and one struck Awad in the upper body. Her husband, Amer, said he found his wife dead. “The sight was painful and frightening,” he said.
Earlier Monday, two men — Ahmad Abu Ghazaleh Mahajna and his son, Abdel Qader Mahajna — were shot to death in Umm al-Fahm. Their vehicle overturned several times after the shooting. At least 17 bullet holes were visible on the windshield. A burned vehicle believed to have been used by the assailants was found nearby. Police said the motive was likely criminal. No arrests have been made.
On Saturday, 18-year-old Abd Masharka was shot and killed in Nazareth. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. Police said the motive was criminal and the circumstances remain under investigation. Hours later, a man in his 20s was shot dead in the northern Negev near the Neot Hovav interchange.
The wave of violence has intensified compared to the same period last year, when 31 people were killed. Of the 50 homicides recorded so far this year, only four cases have been solved, according to advocacy groups tracking crime in Arab communities.
On Sunday, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu of the Otzma Yehudit party, led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, addressed the violence in an interview, saying authorities are “very successful in the fight against violence.”
He placed responsibility on Arab leadership, saying it has ignored what he described as longstanding cultural violence within the community. “In our society, if someone fires a gun at a wedding, the celebrants would jump on him,” Eliyahu said. “In that society, unfortunately — certainly in Israel — we see anarchy, disregard for the rule of law, people who have been dealing in illegal weapons for years.”