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3. Tens of Thousands Rally against Surging Arab-Israeli Crime

Tens of thousands of people gathered in northern Israel on Thursday to protest what they said was the police's inaction on curbing soaring violent crime in Arab-Israeli communities.

The march in the city of Sakhnin coincided with a general strike in Arab cities and towns across the country, calling for action on the same issue.

Under a grey sky and braving the winter cold, people of all ages marched, holding signs in Hebrew and Arabic, and chanting "Arab blood is not cheap", an AFP journalist reported.

Children held signs reading "I'm a child and I'm afraid", while medical staff in their white blouses held placards reading "our responsibility as doctors doesn't stop at the hospital door."

Some demonstrators held photos of people murdered over the past year, such as Dr Abdallah Omar, who Israel's health ministry said was killed in his clinic of Kfar Yasif in February 2025.

"Our demands are so simple: take the criminals and treat them like criminals," Abu Raiya Amro, a 30-year-old doctor on strike today, told AFP.

At least 20 Arab citizens of Israel were killed since the start of 2026, while 2025 broke all previous records with 258 people from the community being murdered that year, according to Yael Agmon of Standing Together, a movement that aims to bring together Arab Israeli and Jewish Israeli communities.

"For many years we have been begging the government to intervene and do something with all the criminals that are literally ruining our lives," Amro added.

"But the government is not moving and we hear shooting every day, everywhere, even like innocent people got killed, their cars, their homes are not safe," he told AFP.

"For the last few years we have seen that the crime is increasing in Arab society and inside of Israel, and we see that the police is not trying to fight it," said Mina Alaa Elden, 24, the General Secretary of the Communist Youth League.

"We're asking to change the system," she told AFP.

In the middle of the crowd, a young woman held a flower drenched in fake blood above her head.

"We have come to make heard the cry of Arab society, which is being pushed into a corner," said Ali Sayed Ahmad, a 31-year-old accountant.

"We live with a constant sense of insecurity that has become a plague," he added.

Dozens of Israeli police in riot gear watched over the demonstration, which ended peacefully.

"In every Arab home there is grief; in every Arab home there is fear," said Rula Daoud, co-director of Standing Together, an Israeli grassroots movement aiming to bring together Palestinians and Jewish Israeli communities.

"We must not stop and we must not give up, because no one will help us if we do not rise up and act against this government," she was quoted as saying in a statement.

Arab-Israelis are Palestinians who remained in what is now Israel after its creation in 1948, and represent about 20 percent of the country's population.

Many of them live in the country's north, particulalry in the Galillee region where Sakhnin is located.

AFP