Hamas leader blames “Zionist enemy” for Arab organized crime slayings, honor killings.
By World Israel News Staff
As the murder rate in Israel’s Arab communities reaches a record high, the Hamas terror group is blaming the Jewish State for the spike in slayings.
Since the beginning of 2023, at least 166th Arab-Israelis have been killed. Nearly all of those murders took place within the context of organized crime rivalries or political disputes.
A handful of the slayings were “honor killings,” in which women are murdered by their male relatives for allegedly bringing shame upon their families.
But despite the fact that the murders are taking place within Arab communities and are carried out by exclusively Arab perpetrators, a Hamas statement placed the onus of responsibility for the increase in violence on the Israeli government.
“We hold the Zionist occupation responsible for the blood and the murders running wild inside the lands of 1948,” read a media statement from the office of Hamas’s politburo head, Ismail Haniyeh.
“The security arms of the Zionist enemy play a dangerous role that aims to engage our people in another struggle to forget their religious and historical ties to the Palestinian people in Gaza, the West Bank, and in exile,” he added.
The statement did not explain how the existence of the Jewish State was connected to Arab-on-Arab slayings.
According to a Channel 12 report, Haniyeh’s statement was likely intended to rile up Arab-Israelis and leverage their simmering resentment against Israel, in the hopes of sparking internal unrest, similar to what occurred during Operation Guardian of the Walls.
During the May 2021 Israel-Gaza clash, Arab citizens of Israel engaged in widespread rioting, arson, and unprovoked attacks over a several day span. At least three Jewish Israelis were killed as a result of Arab rioting.
Some Arab-Israeli lawmakers and social activists have charged that the Israeli police fail to sufficiently investigate murders within the sector.
Israeli police have identified reticence on the part of Arab-Israelis to speak with investigators or testify in court against criminals as a major factor for the continued violence, as refusal to cooperate with authorities makes it nearly impossible to secure arrests or successful prosecutions.