The Media Line: Israel Police Commissioner Declares ‘State of National Emergency’ as 5 Arabs Murdered in the Last 12 Hours  

Israel Police Commissioner Declares ‘State of National Emergency’ as 5 Arabs Murdered in the Last 12 Hours  

By The Media Line Staff  

Israel Police Commissioner Danny Levy said Thursday that Israel is facing a “state of national emergency” as a wave of lethal shootings left five men from Arab communities dead within roughly 12 hours and exposed what he described as severe limits on law enforcement’s ability to respond.  

Levy made the remarks during a situational assessment with senior police officials, after a string of separate shooting incidents from Wednesday night into early Thursday pushed the year’s homicide toll in Israel’s Arab community to 43, up from about 31 during the same period last year. Seventeen people have been killed since the start of February alone.  

“Our hands are tied, our ears are muffled, and our eyes are blindfolded,” Levy said, stating that police lack the tools needed to confront entrenched criminal violence. “To win this fight, we need a united front, a synchronized national effort from everyone.”  

Four of the deaths occurred overnight in unrelated attacks across the country. One victim was 22-year-old Mokhtar Ata Abu Madiam, whose body was found inside a car in Rahat, a Bedouin city in the Negev. Abu Madiam was the son of the town’s former mayor and had survived a previous attempt on his life four months earlier.  

His father, Ata Abu Madiam, accused authorities of ignoring repeated warnings about threats against his son. Speaking to Israel’s public radio, he said police failed to intervene despite knowing who was responsible. “He had no dispute with anyone. We know who carried out the shooting,” he said. “Those responsible must be arrested and left to rot in prison.” He added that he never imagined he would become a bereaved parent.  

The remaining fatalities were reported in separate locations nationwide. A man in his early 40s was killed in Yarka in the western Galilee, while another victim, believed to be in his 50s, was shot in Lod. In the Negev town of Shaqib al-Salam, also known as Segev Shalom, a man in his 20s was murdered. Separately, a man about 30 years old succumbed Thursday to gunshot wounds he had sustained the previous day in Fureidis, near Haifa, where 40-year-old Mohammad Qassem was also shot dead a day earlier.   

The man in Yarka was found unconscious, without a pulse or breathing, and with severe gunshot wounds. Efforts to revive him failed, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.  

Protesters in Tel Aviv took to the streets in late January in large numbers to demand action from the Israeli government over what they said was its failure to curb a surge in violent crime in Arab communities, with tens of thousands of Arab and Jewish demonstrators marching and calling for authorities to do more to stop the killings and protect residents.