Scores of Palestinians in the Arab towns of Jisr az-Zarqa and Fureidis in 1948-occupied Palestine demonstrated this evening in condemnation of the failure of the Israeli police to put an end to crime in the Arab-majority communities in the country.

During the protests, demonstrators raised banners holding the Israeli Police responsible for criminality in the Arab sector and even collaboration with criminal gangs. They also raised pictures of victims of domestic crimes that took place over the last few months.

Since the beginning of this year, 125 Palestinians have been killed in criminal incidents inside 1948-occupied Palestine , in an unprecedented increase in toll compared to 2022. Over 111 and 109 murders were documented in 2021, and 2022, respectively.

Palestinian nationals of Israel accuse the Israeli police and government of discriminating against them and not doing enough to stop crime in their towns compared to Jewish towns.

Several protests and calls by the Palestinians in 1948-occupied Palestine, who make up more than 20 percent of the Israeli population, on the government and police to fight the rise in crime in their towns have not yet yielded any significant results with less than a fifth of the crimes be resolved or criminals apprehended.

Palestinians in today’s Israel are those who stayed in their land following the establishment of the occupying state of Israel in 1948 and their descendants. They make up about 20 percent of the country’s nine million people.

By law, their rights are equal to those of Jewish citizens. But in practice they suffer discrimination in employment, housing, policing and other areas of life.

Source: Palestine News & Information Agency