Five Israeli Arabs were shot and killed Thursday (June 8th) at a car wash in northern Israel, police said, calling it a "criminal" act.
The facts took place in Yafia, an Arab town located west of Nazareth, the police said in a statement, adding that research is underway to apprehend the perpetrators. A representative of the police mentioned the track of a settling of scores between gangs. Since the beginning of the year, 96 Israeli Arabs have been killed.
Speaking of a "massacre", Maher Khaliliya, head of the local council of Yafia, blamed the police, accused of laxity. The city is "in solidarity with the families of the victims", he told Agence France-Presse (AFP), adding that he had no information on the motives of the shooters.
Experts say Arab gangs have accumulated large amounts of weapons over the past two decades and are involved in activities such as drug, arms and human trafficking, prostitution, extortion and money laundering.
wave of murders
Israeli Arabs, descendants of Palestinians who remained on their lands when the State of Israel was created in 1948, represent around 20% of the population. They say they are victims of discrimination compared to the Jewish majority and believe that the police and the authorities are lax when it comes to protecting them and investigating the violence.
At the end of May, elected officials and community representatives demonstrated in Jerusalem to demand that the government step up security. After a meeting with Arab MPs, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced earlier this week the formation of a steering committee to find "solutions to the wave of murders in Arab society".
On Thursday, he reaffirmed his determination to "stop this series of killings", relying in particular on the Shin Bet, the internal security services, which does not normally investigate criminal cases.
Earlier in the day, a 30-year-old man and a 3-year-old girl were shot and wounded in Kafr Kanna, another Arab town north of Nazareth. According to Roni Halon, a journalist with the Nazareth-based station Radio Nas, the Yafia shooting happened as a police helicopter was flying over the town looking for the perpetrators of the Kafr Kanna killings. Two masked men arrived on a motorbike and opened fire on the customers of the car wash, said the journalist, interviewed at the scene by AFP.
