A 55-year-old woman was shot to death Thursday night in the northern city of Tamra, as a wave of violence continued to grip the Arab community.
The victim was identified as Wafaa Rafik Awad. According to witnesses, gunmen opened fire at a house and she was struck, apparently unintentionally. A short time later, while police were still at the scene, additional gunshots were heard.
55-year-old woman shot dead in northern Israel as Arab community violence surges
Magen David Adom said it received a report of the shooting at 10:55 p.m. Paramedics pronounced Awad dead at the scene.
“We saw the woman lying on the ground unconscious with severe penetrating wounds,” medic Ahmad Abu Alhija said. “We performed medical examinations, but her injuries were critical and she had no signs of life, and her death was declared.”
Earlier Thursday, a 24-year-old woman was moderately wounded in a shooting in Tayibe and was taken to Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba. Security camera footage showed a masked gunman approaching her vehicle and firing at close range as she was reversing. The woman fled through the passenger side and ran bleeding into a nearby store.
In a separate incident in Qalansawe, four people were moderately wounded in a shooting within about 15 minutes, and a horse was shot and killed.
The killings come amid a sharp rise in violent crime in the Arab community. Since the start of 2026, 45 people have been killed in 43 days, according to local advocacy groups — 17 more than during the same period last year, when 28 killings were recorded.
Early Thursday, a man in his 20s was shot dead in Segev Shalom in the Negev. Hours earlier, three people were killed in separate shootings in Rahat, Yarka and Lod. In Fureidis, near Zikhron Yaakov, another man was shot dead in an attack captured on security cameras that later led to clashes between residents and police.
As violence escalates, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir pointed to what he described as positive trends, citing a 20% drop in homicides in the Jewish sector and a 40% decline in killings of women. “I believe that what we are doing in the Jewish sector, we can also do in the Arab sector,” he said during a security assessment.
Meanwhile, Roi Kahlon, head of the task force combating crime in the Arab community, called on Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to declare an enforcement emergency.
“In light of the collapse of deterrence and the severe harm to public safety, immediate steps must be taken,” Kahlon wrote. “Partial measures are no longer sufficient. A decisive response is required.”
Kahlon said the authority and responsibility rest with the attorney general as head of the law enforcement system. He criticized her position, saying she opposes designating crime organizations as terrorist groups and declaring an immediate enforcement emergency.