Crime within the Arab-Israeli communities is peaking with shootings and murders becoming a daily occurrence. Alaa Elsach, a 29-year-old young man, was shot Thursday night by unknown people in the city of Lod. He was wounded, and later that night died of his wounds in the hospital. The police are investigating the shooting, along with other criminal cases stemming from the existence of a large black market in the city.
The report of the shooting was received at 20:53 at the MDA center in the Ayalon region. The MDA team evacuated Elsach to the Assaf Harofeh hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police officers of the Lod station scanned and collected evidence at the scene to help locate suspects.
"Most of the shootings that occur in recent times are due to loans from black market sources. Many men got involved with this world," local residents said after the murder.
Since the beginning of the year, eight people have been murdered in Lod, seven of them in the last three months. On July 8, 32-year-old Ragev Abu Hamad was murdered in the city of Lod as well. The shootings are not exclusive to young men, Nahad Alhanoni, 60, a resident of Tira was shot in Lod after leaving his relatives' house.
Since the beginning of the year, 74 Arabs in Israel have been murdered by Arabs, conflict or differences of opinion are resolved by murder, the photo Arab women who were murdered by relatives like those in the photo. The woman in the middle was murdered in front of the children pic.twitter.com/82tI7dfReB
— Aharon a (@Aharona11) September 29, 2022
In the Arab-Israeli community, one of the biggest worries of voters in recent polls is the rising crime. According to some, these communities are treated as second-class citizens when it comes to police investigations and general concerns from the local authorities. However, non-cooperation by some in the Arab community with Israeli authorities contributes a lot to the inability to solve many of these cases. Despite this, the Arab parties running in the upcoming Israeli elections have been using the uptick in crime to their political advantage.
Amidst the latest crime wave, last night, an Arab-Israeli mother, Manar Hajjaj, and her twin daughters were shot in their car in the mixed city of Lod in central Israel.
— United With Israel (@UniteWithIsrael) September 6, 2022
Israeli mayor demands action! https://t.co/EqOZdUeytO
The police commander of the North District, Superintendent Shuki Tachocha, said after one of the shootings that took place over the Summer: "We are at war with crime and we have to make the right decision. Let any criminal who endangers others know that he will encounter determined police officers who will not hesitate to act in order to neutralize the threat in the name of public safety. I support our police officers and expect them to act exactly like this, Striving for contact with criminals, with composure and courage, even when bullets are flying around them. To act against all risks to the lives of the citizens as well as their own lives."
The mayor of Lod, Yair Rabivo, commented earlier this year on the violent crime and blamed the ‘soft-on-crime’ court system. "As long as the Knesset is busy bickering instead of enacting the shooting laws, and as long as the justice system releases the shooters to their homes within hours, this spectacle may repeat itself and with high frequency."
