RAHAT — A steady stream of mourners slowly trickled into a pavilion just down the hill from the Bedouin city’s open-air market earlier this month, seeking to pay their last respects to a resident shot dead the day before.

As the noonday sun shone overhead, boys rode bicycles around an unpaved lot while their fathers sat in plastic chairs arrayed around the pavilion, idly sipping coffee.

Some who arrived offered their condolences and then went on their way, but most stayed to await the arrival of the body of Ahmad al-Naami from the forensic lab where it was undergoing an autopsy. His family hoped to be able to lay him to rest later that afternoon, immediately following prayers in the mosque.

Naami, a 50-year-old IDF veteran, had been beset by a myriad of health problems, family and friends said. He had a diabetes diagnosis, suffered a stroke four years ago that left him barely able to walk and just last month, doctors found a cancerous tumor developing on his brain.

The father of seven was supposed to undergo knee surgery Saturday to alleviate his walking difficulties, but never made it onto the operating table. Hours before his appointment, he was shot dead by a reservist in the Border Police.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Naami’s 52-year-old brother Srour ‘Falah’ al-Naami, struggling to refer to his slain sibling in the past tense as he spoke to The Times of Israel from the mourning tent. “To suddenly lose someone I was so close to.”

For many in the mourning tent and beyond, Naami’s killing was a tragic reminder of the community’s deepening estrangement from the State of Israel, which has become especially pronounced among younger people. Many blame inequality and rising anti-Arab sentiment for reversing decades of positive integration into Israeli society.

Srour recalled a period when a large portion of Rahat’s men would go to the army. “It’s not like this anymore, because the policy in Israel has shifted entirely. Now most young men don’t enlist,” he said. “I have nephews who are serving, but it’s a tiny percentage in Rahat, it’s not like how it once was.”

Naami is the fourth Arab man to be shot by police this year, and the second from the Bedouin community. Though the vast majority of the crime wave that has beset Arab society in recent years is based in the north of the country, where most Arab Israelis live, law enforcement units operating under ultranationalist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir have concentrated their efforts on Bedouin towns in the south, sparking intense friction.

Critics say the activities, which Ben Gvir says are aimed at restoring “sovereignty” in the face of rampant lawlessness, along with other discriminatory government policies, have fueled a process that has helped drive a wedge between it and the state.

“It doesn’t matter who you are, whether you served, we’re all the same in the police’s eyes,” lamented Jamal, one of Naami’s cousins, during the car ride to the cemetery.

According to the police’s account of the shooting, the 3 a.m. incident occurred after officers flagged Naami’s vehicle as “suspicious” and told him to pull over. When Naami didn’t listen, they pursued him in his car until he disembarked, then chased him down on foot and arrested him.

Police said Naami attacked officers and “forcefully resisted arrest” and the reservist — sensing his life was at risk —........

© The Times of Israel