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As Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip approaches the one-year mark and the military begins a simultaneous ground invasion in southern Lebanon, another war is intensifying in parallel — one being waged by criminal gangs in Palestinian communities inside Israel. Since the beginning of 2024, more than 180 Palestinians citizens of Israel have been murdered in attacks linked to organized crime, a figure that could be on track to match last year’s record of 244. And it’s not just the numbers that are shocking; it’s also the nature of the attacks.
Whereas in the past, criminal killings were overwhelmingly shootings, in recent months there has been a sharp uptick in the use of explosive devices. The most notable example was a car bombing in the city of Ramle on Sept. 12, which killed four people — including two children — and wounded nine others, including a two-month-old baby. Last week, a similar attack in the city of Kiryat Malachi seriously wounded a Palestinian man from the Bedouin town of Hura.
For Palestinians across Israel, there is a sense that the adoption of such tactics means criminal organizations present a more lethal danger than ever before. And the proliferation of high-grade weaponry on Israel’s streets can be traced directly to the army’s year-long offensive in the Gaza Strip.
“Explosive devices of this size originate from the war in Gaza, or are connected to it in some way,” explained Dr. Walid Haddad, a criminology expert who previously advised Israel’s Public Security Ministry. “These are military methods, and most of the munitions used were smuggled or leaked from the army, unlike the relatively simple munitions used [by Palestinian resistance groups] in the West Bank against Israeli forces.”
Already in February, Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, reported that the army suspected that soldiers or civilians who gained access to the military’s weapons intended for use in Gaza had stolen grenades, projectiles, and anti-tank missiles — some as souvenirs, and others to sell to criminal organizations. That month, 15 grenades were used in various criminal incidents, and the police arrested a Palestinian from East Jerusalem who was in possession of a “Matador” anti-tank missile, which the army frequently uses in Gaza. In another case, the military police arrested two Israeli soldiers from the Nahal Brigade on suspicion of selling an army rifle.
“War fuels crime,” Haddad told +972. “This happened in Afghanistan and other parts of the world, and it happened here during the first Lebanon War, when the drug trade also flourished. There is a market for the arms trade, and so, when there are large quantities of weapons and ammunition circulating, you will find someone looking to make a profit.”
‘The state that must combat them’
Year on year, criminal organizations within Arab communities in Israel have been growing stronger, and now they operate in plain view. Even children know who runs them, who their foot soldiers are, and who will be their next targets. But the state does nothing, which is part and parcel of the government’s deliberate neglect toward Palestinian society. These days, murders in Umm al-Fahm or Rahat are barely reported in the news.
Research by the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel found that the murder rate among Palestinians in Israel was the third highest for any OECD country in 2019; with 11.11 murders per 100,000 citizens — a figure that tripled for those between the ages of 20 and 34 — the rate came in just below those of Mexico and Colombia. “In our reality today,” one Palestinian citizen being pursued by crime gangs told +972 earlier this year, “you have to be a criminal in order to survive.”
After the car bombing in Ramle, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir vowed to “go to war” with the criminals responsible. But Haddad placed specific blame for the current escalation on the minister himself, whose role includes overseeing the police, pointing to the drop in murder cases opened during his tenure over the past two years. “Without a doubt, [previous Public Security Minister Omer] Bar-Lev and [his deputy Yoav] Segalovich were better than Ben Gvir. Their intentions were better, even if it is difficult to judge their work because it lasted only a year,” he explained.
Segalovich had previously served as head of Lahav 433, the special investigations and crime-fighting unit within the Israel Police, which Haddad claimed gave him the experience and skills to begin to target organized crime. “He tried to fight the funding sources of the organizations,” Haddad explained — but that program only lasted six months before Ben Gvir halted it without explanation. “A project of this sort needs at least three years before it is possible to say whether it succeeded or failed,” he added.
Daniel Levy, who was sworn in as police chief at the end of August after being appointed by Ben Gvir, also has a weak track record of tackling homicides. Indeed, Haddad explained, his best figures are in the realm of “agricultural crime and domestic violence, which are things that Ben Gvir prefers to brag about.”
In Ramle and in Lydd/Lod, where homicide rates are particularly high, the local popular committees — composed of elected council members, civil society representatives, and grassroots activists — charged the government and police with enabling the flow of weapons and other resources to criminal organizations. They also called on their own communities to take immediate action.
“We, and only we, must organize to curb the violence and restore the social fabric that has fallen apart,” the committees said in a joint statement following the Ramle attack. “Teachers, school principals, sheikhs and imams, youth group instructors, politicians — everyone should do the educational work needed to put out this all-consuming fire. The sources and resources of organized crime must be dried up. Every family must look after their children and take care of them.”
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Haddad, however, was skeptical that civil society has the resources to put an end to organized crime. He recalled that crime organizations in Jewish-Israeli society grew more powerful during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, when gangs began using explosive devices that likely also came from the army’s operations in the West Bank and Gaza at the time. But “the state decided to fight these organizations; no one asked [Jewish] civil society to fight them.”
Civil society, he went on, “can intervene to resolve local conflicts, but in a limited way. Criminal organizations have no relation to traditional social frameworks. It is the state that must combat them.”
A version of this article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.