Two Palestinians killed in drive-by shooting

Two more young Palestinian men have been shot dead in southern Israeli-occupied territories amid rising levels of violence in their communities and the Israeli police’s collaboration with criminal gangs.  

Sharif Anees Sheikh Al-Eid and Ibrahim Nidal Sheikh Al-Eid, both aged 20 and from the Palestinian Bedouin town of Rahat, were killed in the early hours of Wednesday morning in a drive-by shooting in southern Israel.

The victims were driving near the Lehavim Junction when suspects opened fire from another moving vehicle.

They were taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition before being pronounced dead at dawn on Wednesday morning.

The number of Palestinians killed in Israel this year has now reached 144, a record high.

Israeli police have opened an investigation into the murders but have so far made no arrests.

In recent months, Palestinian citizens of Israel have denounced police "complicity" amid a record-high murder rate in their community.

Raed Salah, a prominent religious leader and a Palestinian citizen of Israel said the Tel Aviv regime forces have been notorious for protecting criminal gangs in Arab towns.

"This is based on accusations made by some Israeli officials against each other in regards to providing protection to gang leaders and slowing investigations," Salah, who is the head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, said.

"The position taken by Israeli institutions on how to deal with this tragedy is suspicious," he added.

Palestinians protest against Israeli police complicity in organized crimes across occupied lands

Hundreds of Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories protest against organized crime and the Israeli police’s inaction to stop the violence.

Mohammad Barakeh, a former Knesset member and head of the High Follow-Up Committee, an umbrella civil society organization representing Israel's Palestinian citizens, told Middle East Eye earlier this year that Israeli authorities are turning a blind eye to the issue.

"There is a frightening increase in the size of crime gangs in Palestinian society and victims are falling one after the other," he said. "Israel is pretending as if the matter does not concern it."

Spiraling levels of crime and violence against the Palestinian communities as well as the Israeli police’s inaction in the face of the violence has outraged Arab citizens of Israel, prompting tens of thousands of them to stage mass demonstrations over the past few months.

Protesters took to the streets in the city of Umm al-Fahm northwest of Jenin on March 5 in what some reporters described as the largest rally against violence and organized crime in the Israeli-occupied territories since the 1980s.

The demonstrators said Israeli forces refused to crack down on powerful criminal organizations in the occupied territories.

In the most recent instance of discrimination against Arab citizens, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, a key member of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right regime, on Monday suspended millions of dollars in funding to Arab towns and Palestinian education programs in the occupied East al-Quds

Hawkish Israeli minister suspends funds to Arab towns, occupied East al-Quds

A Hawkish Israeli minister has seized millions of dollars in funding to Arab towns and Palestinian education programs in the occupied East al-Quds.

Arab citizens, most of whom are descendants of Palestinians, make up about a fifth of Israel’s population.

Israel’s Arab minority has for decades faced social and economic disparities compared with Jewish citizens, including high poverty rates, overcrowded towns lacking in infrastructure and poorly-funded schools.

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