Suleiman Aghbariyah, former mayor of Umm al-Fahm (screenshot)
In the latest in a string of shootings in Arab Israeli communities, former Umm al-Fahm mayor Suleiman Aghbariah was seriously injured on Thursday night by armed assailants.
Aghbariah is a well-known figure in Arab Israeli politics. He not only served as mayor of a major Arab Israeli city in central Israel, but was also a senior leader in the Northern Islamic Movement until it was banned in 2015.
“No one is immune anymore to the murderous violence and the weapons flooding Arab society. This is an emergency. We’re living in a civil war,” tweeted Joint List MK Yousef Jabareen, an Umm al-Fahm resident who lives close to the site of the shooting.
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On December 16, Nimr Suleiman was sitting in a house in al-Reineh with several friends when a group of armed men burst in and opened fire.
Suleiman was hit by a spray of bullets and died on the spot. While his death is still being investigated, it is believed that the intruders had intended to gun down one of his companions.
The killing marked a tragic new record for bloodshed among Israel’s Arab citizens: 90 homicides since the start of 2020. By December 28, the toll had hit 96, representing a harrowing 50 percent jump in the murder rate among Arab Israelis in only four years.
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Dec. 14, 2020
In an unusual move last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended a special session of the Knesset committee to fight violence in Arab society, which broadly addressed the government proposal to combat violence and concluded that the plan would be approved soon, perhaps within two weeks.
A month and a half later, the plan hasn’t been approved, nor is it clear when it will be; moreover, no budget has been allocated for it. Meanwhile, the number of victims of violence in Arab communities continues to rise. According to Haaretz figures, a murder in Zarzir in northern Israel on Saturday raised the number of violent deaths this year to 89.