The newspaper highlighted that the latest fatalities were recorded last night, when a 21-year-old man was shot in the town of Rahat and another 50-year-old man in the town of Deir al-Assad.

This year, “crime and murder rates in Arab-Israeli society are breaking negative records,” the publication emphasized.

According to official data, 222 members of that community died from this cause in 2023, and another 221 the following year.

In February, Lod Mayor Yair Revivo attacked the government for its lack of clear action to combat the violence and criminal gangs that plague the minority, which represents just over 21 percent of the total population.

Revivo thus alluded to Trump’s proposal to expel the Palestinian population from Gaza Strip, which drew harsh criticism in the Middle East and around the world, given that instead of transferring them, which is a huge headache, we allow them to kill each other, the mayor said.

The descendants of Palestinians who were not expelled from their lands after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948 have since complained that they are treated as second-class citizens.

For its part, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government attributes the rise in crime to flourishing organized crime and the proliferation of weapons on the streets.

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