"They killed him, he didn't die": Inside the crime wave devastating Israel's Arab community

In a small living room, a cat named Lucy still waits by the window. She used to sit there every day with Amad — Imad Amaash, her owner. Now she sits there alone, staring at his photograph.

"This was Amad's cat," his mother, Bushra, says, watching the animal curl into its old spot. "They would always sit there together. They slept there. Now she sits there all the time. She sleeps there, looks at his picture. When I say 'Amad,' she moves her eyes like this. She understands that he died."

Nine months ago, 23-year-old Imad Amaash was gunned down while out buying sweets with a friend in Jisr az-Zarqa, an Israeli Arab town on Israel's northern Mediterranean coast. He was shot multiple times inside his car outside the shop, in an attack allegedly targeting his friend. No one has been arrested.

"They killed him; he didn't die, he was murdered — but until now they haven't done anything for him," Bushra says. "The police didn't even come to me for questioning, or question anyone else — nothing. I'm angry at them because of this. What is this, isn't he a human being?"

Bushra's grief is not an isolated tragedy. It's part of a crisis that community leaders describe as nothing short of a war being waged on Israel's Arab citizens — one that police, they say, have all but abandoned them to.

A record-breaking death toll

More than 250 Arab citizens of Israel were killed in crime-related violence in 2025 — already the deadliest year on record. 2026 is on pace to be worse still: 144 homicides in the Arab community were recorded in just the first six months of the year alone.

Arabs make up roughly 20 percent of Israel's population, yet they account for more than 80 percent of the country's homicide victims. And of the killings recorded so far this year, only around 12 percent have resulted in an arrest or indictment — meaning the vast majority of killers remain free, and largely unpursued.

For families living through it, the numbers translate into an unbearable, daily reality.

"Every day, five or ten people are killed. It's like a war here," Bushra says. Her son's case is not the only one to touch her family. Just a month before our interview, her sister's son was also shot dead — killed in Jerusalem's Old City after visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

"This is my country. I have an Israeli ID. I am Israeli. Arab, Muslim — but Israeli," Bushra says. "The police should protect me. But they don't protect anyone."

"I am both father and mother"

In another home nearby, 27-year-old Fatma points to the chair outside her front door. "He was sitting here on the chair. That's where it happened," she says quietly.

Four years ago, her husband Mohammed was stabbed to death right outside their home by a drunk stranger — just two months after Fatma had given birth to their fourth child.

"I had just given birth. I was still weak. We were sitting outside," she recalls. "Some young men were nearby. They called him to come down. Mohammed asked him, 'Why are you doing this?' He took out the knife and stabbed him."

Her husband's killer was caught and is serving time in prison — a rare case that actually resulted in a conviction. But justice hasn't eased the trauma of what was left behind. Fatma is now raising four children alone, unable to work.

"I'm tired. I'm exhausted. Sometimes I don't want to continue," she says. "It's very hard. I am both father and mother. I want to raise the children properly. There's no one to help me. At night, the children wake up crying. The children feel what they're missing. They feel weak without a father."

She says she's now too afraid to even leave her house. During our interview, the point was underscored in the most visceral way possible — the sound of machine-gun fire echoing nearby.

"Do you hear about things like this all the time here?" we asked.

"All the time, yes," Fatma answers.

"There's always another incident," adds Dirar Amreikh, a local entrepreneur who joined the interview. "You don't know what will happen next. It's frightening."

Neglect, not culture, community leaders say

Experts point to a mix of causes behind the surge in violence over the past three years: criminal networks that understand enforcement is weaker in Arab towns, easy access to illegal weapons, and decades of underinvestment in infrastructure, education, housing, and employment that have pushed families into poverty and desperation.

Organized crime has taken root as a result — armed gangs terrorizing shop owners, trafficking weapons and drugs, and extorting local politicians for control over municipal budgets and tenders. Community leaders reject the notion that the bloodshed reflects something inherent to Arab culture. They call it systemic — and a matter of national security.

"For decades, Arab society has been sitting in the Knesset in the opposition. They've never been a meaningful part of the government," says Dirar Amreikh, standing in Jisr al-Zarqa, a town of 17,000 people just a hundred meters from Caesarea — one of Israel's wealthiest towns, and home to the prime minister. "That's why, until now, we haven't succeeded in solving the problems in Arab society — whether it's crime or infrastructure. Here we see what's here, compared to Caesarea just a few meters away. Why does this happen? Because we were always in the opposition. We never knew how to integrate into the government."

Dirar Amreikh, a businessman from the Arab-Israeli town of Tamra, is now running for office with a new joint Arab-Jewish political party, "Together We Will Succeed," co-founded with veteran Jewish businessman and former Labor Party member Avi Shaked.

"We're partners everywhere — business, hospitals, pharmacies, sports. Forty percent of doctors are Arab," Amreikh says. "The only place we're not partners is in government. Politicians fuel incitement. The majority is sane and wants democracy and good lives."

"Jisr al-Zarqa could be the most beautiful place in Israel, even the Middle East," he adds. "But it's neglected because of racist policy."

Shaked agrees. "What we bring — our message — is that Israeli governments, from the founding of the state until today, have neglected Arab society," he says. "Dirar and I bring a message of reconciliation, a message of coexistence within the State of Israel. That's the most important thing for the country."

"The existential threat to Israel is the lack of peace within us — and with our neighbors," Shaked continues. "For 77 years, Israel has neglected Arab society — and these are the results."

Amreikh puts it starkly: "Israel ranks third in the world in murders because of what's happening in Arab society. But it's not 'in Arab society' — it's in the State of Israel. What's happening here is Israel. We're not in Africa or a third-world country or Gaza. We're in Israel. The world needs to see this is Israel."

Trust in police collapsing

Israel's current right-wing leadership has pushed back on claims of state neglect. Some officials argue Arab communities are too quick to blame the government while failing to confront criminal networks operating from within, with hardline figures like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich placing blame on local Arab leadership instead.

Police, for their part, say organized crime networks intimidate witnesses and silence communities, making investigations exceptionally difficult, and argue they should not shoulder all of the blame. Contacted separately, Israel Police said they are treating every incident "with the utmost seriousness," pointing to newly formed joint task forces and ongoing meetings with community leaders, and said complex investigations simply take time.

But faith in that response is eroding fast. Recent polling shows just 19 percent of Arab citizens say they trust the police, compared with 35 percent of Jewish Israelis.

"If it were a Jewish boy, it wouldn't be like this"

At a third home — one of several families who asked to speak with us despite only two interviews having been scheduled that day — Hamda Amaash keeps a photo of her son by her side.

In 2017, her 17-year-old son Jaboura was killed outside their home, stabbed by a local drug addict after an argument that started, by her account, over ten shekels.

"The day he was murdered, I was in Hadera. He asked me for ten shekels. I gave him twenty. The last word I said was, 'Yalla, bye, Jaboura.' He said, 'Bye, Mom,'" she recalls.

"I didn't see the blood. They cleaned it. But I saw it on the phone. Like a puddle."

Her son's killer was sentenced to ten years. "They gave him ten years. Someone hits his wife gets three years," Hamda says. "He killed my son at the entrance of the house."

"If it were a Jewish boy, it wouldn't be like this," she says. "If he killed Jaboura, he'll kill another. Is there no law in the State of Israel? Where do we live?"

She keeps his picture where she can see it every day. "It's from his friend," she says. "So I see him every day."

A community running out of patience

The devastation described by Bushra, Fatma, and Hamda is far from unique. According to the Abraham Initiatives, a coexistence organization that tracks the violence, more than 140 Arab citizens had been killed in criminal violence by the middle of this year — a roughly 12 percent increase over the same period in 2025. If the pace continues, 2026 will surpass last year's record toll.

For families like Bushra's, Fatma's, and Hamda's, none of it has yet translated into an arrest, an answer, or a sense that the law applies to their sons the way it would to anyone else's.

"Is there no law in the State of Israel?" Hamda asks. "Where do we live?"