With 5 Arab Israelis shot dead in 12 hours, police chief warns of ‘national emergency’ |
Five men were killed within 12 hours from Wednesday night through early Thursday, including a Druze sheikh and the son of a former mayor, as violent crime rages unabated in Arab locales.
Amid the latest spate of killings, Police Commissioner Danny Levy warned that Israel was in a “state of national emergency.”
In a situational assessment with senior officers on Thursday morning, Levy said police were underequipped to deal with the issue. Law enforcement cannot do its job when “our hands are tied, our ears are muffled, and our eyes are blindfolded,” he said.
Levy said police were doing everything they could to rein in violent crime but claimed officers lacked the technological tools they needed. Furthermore the courts, he said, must be harsher in their sentencing and allow police to use administrative measures against suspects, such as allowing police to restrict certain suspects’ freedom of movement and expression on the basis of confidential evidence. He also urged state prosecutors to expedite the filing of indictments.
Additionally, Levy called on local politicians and religious figures in Arab society to unequivocally denounce the violence, stressing that many of the victims are innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of disputes between gangs and warring families.
“To win this fight, we need a united front, a synchronized national effort from everyone,” Levy said.
The blood-soaked night began Wednesday after sundown, when 48-year-old Mohammad Qassem was shot point-blank outside a corner store in bustling area in Fureidis, a town south of Haifa, by a masked man who then fled on an electric scooter.
Passersby rushed to the victim as he bled out on the sidewalk. According to Qassem’s brother, Ali, he had left the house to buy a pack of cigarettes.
Police arrived at the crime scene to find residents........