Jerusalem, Jul 9 (EFE).- Violence within the Arab sector of Israel continues to increase, and this morning a 23-year-old was murdered in the city of Nazareth, the 116th victim so far this year, reaching the total death toll from Arab crime in all of 2022.
Faruk Jamis, 23, was pronounced dead by emergency services Sunday morning after being shot multiple times outside a bakery in Nazareth, a city with an Arab majority in northern Israel.
The shooting, according to the preliminary investigation by police, is related to a dispute between Arab criminal gangs, which have proliferated in recent years due to the political abandonment suffered by the country’s Arab minority, which represents 21 percent of the population.
According to The Abraham Initiatives, an anti-violence campaigning group, 116 Arabs have been killed in violent circumstances within the community since the beginning of the year, bringing the total number for last year in just over six months. At this rate, It will surpass the historical record of 2021, when 126 Arabs were murdered as victims of this crime.
Of the total deaths this year, 104 were killed with firearms and 67 were under 30.
In addition to the latest murder in Nazareth, within the criminal violence plaguing the Arab community, this week a 55-year-old man was also shot dead in Qalansawe; another aged 45 in Yarka and one of 22 in Araba. In addition, a 20-year-old man and a one-year-old boy were shot dead July 2 in Nazareth.
According to The Abraham Initiatives, about 75 percent of murders in the Arab community emanate from organized crime, while the rest are attributed to blood feuds, femicides involving family members, and other criminal activity.
Israeli authorities have failed to stop the bloodshed despite promising more resources, including more police and funds to tackle the social problems within the Arab sector that are fueling the crime wave.
Many community leaders blame the police, who have failed to crack down on powerful criminal organizations and largely ignore the violence; but they point to decades of neglect, abandonment, and discrimination by government offices as the root cause of the problem. EFE
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