2023-08-28 05:30:26
Ammar and Omar, two young brothers, wake up early, this Thursday in January 2022, and will jump on the bed of their father, Mohammed Hujairat, to wake him up. He cannot blame his two adored children, especially Ammar, his first son after seventeen years of marriage with his wife Aïcha, who had previously given him four daughters. The vast house exudes calm and the large village, Bir Al-Maksur, the tranquility of winter mornings. Here live the heirs of those who escaped the Nakba, the forced exodus of 700,000 Palestinians in 1948 – half the population of historic Palestine. Today, two million Palestinians live within Israel’s internationally recognized borders.
Father and son finally get up. Mohammed, a construction worker, has to leave for work. Ammar is disappointed. ” I’m angry against you “he protests. “These are the last words he spoke to me”, remembers Mohammed Hujairat. He leaves. The child’s aunt takes him with her cousins to a park. Ammar consoles himself. In a video sent to his father, he says: ” Dad I love you. » About ten seconds later, he was killed by a stray bullet. A shooter had come to strafe a dump truck on the site above, as part of an argument between contractors, against a backdrop of theft of materials.
Aïcha Hujairat and her second son Omar, at their home in Bir Al-Maksur, August 12, 2023. LUCIEN LUNG / RIVA-PRESS FOR “THE WORLD” Mohammed Hujairat prays in the living room of his house in Bir Al-Maksur, August 12 2023. LUCIEN LUNG / RIVA-PRESS FOR “THE WORLD”
Family disputes, quarrels between landlords, non-reimbursed loans, arms and drug trafficking, racketeering: in the Palestinian communities of Israel, increasingly deadly violence accompanies the development of increasingly enterprising criminality. One hundred and fifty-seven Israeli Arabs have been killed since the beginning of the year in this kind of settling of scores, compared to 116 during the twelve months of 2022, according to Abraham initiatives, an association which campaigns for equality between Jewish and Arab citizens. . According to a Knesset report, 70% of the people who died of murder in Israel between 2018 and 2022 are Palestinians, while this community constitutes only 20% of the population of this state.
On a street in Umm Al-Fahm, Israel, August 15, 2023. The murals that adorn this wall are the work of Kifah Ghbarieh, an artist who lost seven members of her family to violence within the Arab community city. LUCIEN LUNG / RIVA-PRESS FOR “THE WORLD”
If the figures exploded from 2018, the causes of this phenomenon are old. Palestinian communities have historically been neglected by Israel. The number of police stations serving the approximately 80 Arab towns and cities of the country – villages and hamlets not being counted in this category – amounts to 16, according to the count of Adalah, an organization which defends the rights of the Arab minority in Israel. “State institutions have never really been present in these areas. This has allowed small criminal organizations to thrive”explains Moran Maimoni, co-director of public affairs at Abraham Initiatives.
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