Why has organised crime exploded in Palestinian communities in Israel?

In December 2003, a bomb ripped through the heart of Tel Aviv as part of a brazen attempt to assassinate Israel's notorious crime boss Zeev Rosenstein. Rosenstein survived what would be the seventh attempt on his life, but three bystanders were killed. The attack, which occurred during the height of the Second Intifada and exposed the growing power of the criminal underworld, triggered widespread anger across Israel. Responding to the outrage, the government - led by Ariel Sharon - launched a series of measures that would fundamentally reshape Israel's approach to organised crime. Organised crime would now be treated as more than a law-and-order problem. It was defined as a strategic threat to Israel's social and economic resilience. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters The government passed Resolution 4618 and established an offensive, multi-agency strategy that brought together the Israeli Police, the Tax Authority, the State Attorney’s Office and the Israel Money Laundering and Terror Financing Prohibition Authority. The aim was not merely to arrest low-level operatives, but to dismantle the financial infrastructure that sustained major criminal organisations. Alongside substantial investment in elite enforcement units, the government also laid the groundwork for the Witness Protection Authority through a complementary resolution - 4619. Violence, trauma and rising crime rates: How Israel's wars of aggression are hitting home Read More » Together, these measures gave law enforcement agencies a broader set of legal, operational and financial tools for tackling organised crime. At the time, Israel's most powerful criminal organisations were predominantly Jewish. They operated domestically and internationally, and some were targets of the FBI and Interpol. One of the most prominent was the Abergil organisation, which the FBI described as a major international criminal syndicate. Through sustained cooperation between Israeli and foreign authorities, four of the six major organisations of that period were eventually dismantled or severely weakened: Rosenstein, Abergil, Abutbul and Shirazi. Two others, associated with Shalom Domrani and the Mosly family, survived in a much weaker form. During this period, organised crime within Palestinian communities in Israel remained comparatively limited. It was concentrated mainly in historic mixed cities such as Jaffa, Ramla, Lod and Acre, where many Palestinians who remained after the Nakba lived in poorer neighbourhoods and under difficult socioeconomic conditions. For most Arab towns and villages, large-scale organised crime was still relatively unfamiliar. The shift of the mid-2010s As Jewish organised crime groups gradually weakened, a vacuum began to emerge. Organised crime increasingly moved into Palestinian communities in Israel, where it found weak state institutions, limited policing, widespread availability of illegal weapons, economic marginalisation and vulnerable local authorities. The most dramatic indication of this transformation has been the number of murders. In 2015, 58 people were murdered in Palestinian communities in Israel. By 2019, the number had risen to 89. In 2024 it reached approximately 230, and in 2025 it climbed further to 254. What had once been perceived as a marginal criminal phenomenon had become one of the central political and social questions facing Palestinian citizens of Israel. The disparity is evident not only in the number of murders, but also in the state's ability to solve them. Palestinian citizens constitute about 20 percent of Israel's population, yet in 2025 more than four out of every five murder victims were Arab In 2024, only around 15–18 percent of murders in Palestinian communities in Israel were solved, compared with more than 50 percent in Jewish Israeli society. In other words, more than four out of five murders in Palestinian communities remained unsolved. The gap raises a broader question about unequal law enforcement: Palestinian citizens are not only far more likely to become victims of homicide, but are also significantly less likely to see those crimes investigated to a successful conclusion. The disparity is particularly striking when murder rates are examined per capita. A 2023 study comparing homicide rates in Palestinian and Jewish communities in Israel with OECD countries found that the homicide rate among Palestinian citizens was approximately 11 per 100,000 people. Among Jewish Israelis, by contrast, it was approximately 0.64 per 100,000. The gap has also widened significantly. Until around 2015, the ratio between murders in Palestinian and Jewish communities stood at roughly four to one. By 2023, there were approximately 13 murders in Palestinian communities for every murder in Jewish society. Palestinian citizens constitute about 20 percent of Israel's population, yet in 2025 more than four out of every five murder victims were Arab. This is no longer simply a question of crime. It is a question of citizenship, state responsibility, political power and the unequal distribution of security. The state and organised crime Today, several major criminal organisations operate inside Palestinian communities in Israel. Their activities range from drug trafficking, protection rackets, high-interest loans, extortion and weapons smuggling to increasingly sophisticated attempts to gain control over public resources. In recent years, criminal organisations have expanded their activities into local government. They have sought influence over municipal elections, intimidated elected officials, pressured tender committees and attempted to gain control over public contracts. Waste disposal, recycling, construction, transportation and education budgets have become attractive sources of revenue. Israeli society is intoxicated by war and the dream of expansion. It cannot last Read More » Organised crime is therefore no longer confined to activities taking place outside public institutions. In some communities, criminal groups have sought to work their way into those institutions and use them for their own benefit. They can influence who receives municipal contracts, which companies are allowed to operate, which candidates can run safely in local elections, and how public money is distributed. Their influence consequently extends far beyond the violence normally associated with organised crime. In parts of Palestinian communities, criminal organisations increasingly shape everyday economic, political and social life. The crisis in local government illustrates this transformation. In Nazareth, one of Israel's largest Arab cities, 2025 was marked by a severe crisis surrounding waste collection and municipal finances. Criminal organisations were suspected of infiltrating municipal systems and gaining influence over public contracts. The investigation eventually became connected to the arrest of then-mayor Ali Salam. The Nazareth case is significant because it shows how organised crime can penetrate local government itself. A similar dynamic emerged in Arraba, where the mayor reportedly discovered severe irregularities surrounding municipal expenditure. Despite the town's relatively small size, it was paying dramatically inflated prices for services such as waste collection. The mayor appealed repeatedly to state authorities for assistance. His home was later targeted by gunfire, and he received threats. Such cases expose a contradiction at the heart of the crisis. The state demands that Arab local authorities resist criminal organisations, yet officials who attempt to do so can find themselves confronting those organisations with insufficient protection. The occupation The Abu Latif organisation illustrates some of these contradictions. The organisation emerged from the Druze town of Rameh, within a community where military and security service are relatively common. Members of the extended family have themselves served in Israeli security institutions. Yet the organisation has also been accused of directly challenging the state. As early as 2001, members of the Abu Latif family were arrested and charged in a serious security case involving contact with a foreign agent and assistance to Hezbollah, including the smuggling of weapons, explosive devices and drugs from Lebanon into Israel. In later years, the organisation demonstrated an ability to penetrate some of the Israeli state's most sensitive economic structures. Investigations have alleged that members used threats and extortion to gain influence over Ministry of Defense and military construction tenders, including projects connected to infrastructure along the Lebanese border and facilities associated with the Israeli Air Force. According to testimony attributed to members of the organisation, victims were told: "We are the state." That phrase goes to the heart of the problem. Organised crime does not simply exist outside the state. It can seek to imitate state power, exploit public budgets and, in some places, establish its own form of authority through fear. What does equal citizenship mean when the state's willingness to provide something as fundamental as personal security differs so dramatically between its citizens? Another part of this story involves Palestinian collaborators from the occupied territories. For decades, Israeli security agencies have relied on Palestinian informants and collaborators in the West Bank and Gaza. When the identity of a collaborator becomes exposed, remaining in their community may become impossible or dangerous. Israel has therefore relocated some collaborators and their families into its internationally recognised territory. Some have reportedly been relocated to Palestinian towns and mixed cities inside Israel, sometimes under new identities. Yet their legal and socioeconomic status can remain precarious. Some lack stable citizenship, access to public services, meaningful employment opportunities or long-term social support. A population recruited for security purposes can therefore find itself, years later, living on the margins of Palestinian communities inside Israel. Some eventually become involved in criminal networks. The issue became particularly controversial in 2021, when a senior police official claimed that law-enforcement efforts were sometimes complicated by the fact that individuals involved in serious crime were also informants or collaborators connected to security agencies. According to this claim, protection provided because of their security role could restrict the police’s ability to investigate or prosecute them. If accurate, such cases point to a conflict between two branches of the state: the security establishment, which values intelligence sources, and the police, which is expected to combat criminal activity. For Palestinian citizens living in communities affected by violence, however, that distinction matters little. The result is that individuals involved in serious crime may remain beyond the effective reach of ordinary law enforcement. The political context The rise of organised crime must also be understood within the broader deterioration of the political status of Palestinian citizens of Israel. Even before the appointment of Itamar Ben Gvir as minister of national security, the police response to violence in Palestinian communities was frequently criticised for neglect, institutional discrimination, low clearance rates and stereotypical attitudes towards Palestinian communities. Under Ben Gvir, those problems have acquired an additional political dimension. His tenure has been characterised by attempts to reshape the police hierarchy, promote officers perceived as aligned with his political worldview, and expand political influence over policing priorities. Israel expands gun permits to residents of Jerusalem Jewish neighbourhoods Read More » The clearest test of these policies is their outcome. Murder rates in Palestinian communities have continued to rise. At the beginning of 2026, the issue produced one of the largest Palestinian civic mobilisations inside Israel in recent years. After a criminal organisation attempted to extort the owner of a bakery in the northern city of Sakhnin, the owner refused to continue paying protection money. Rather than submit, he announced that he would close his business and dismiss his workers. His decision triggered a broader revolt. Business owners, residents, activists and local leaders joined the protest. On 22 January, tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Sakhnin while businesses across the city closed in a general strike against organised crime and the failure of the state to confront it. The protest quickly expanded beyond Sakhnin, with the Palestinian political leadership calling for a major demonstration in Tel Aviv, where tens of thousands more joined. For perhaps the first time, crime became not merely a local or social issue but one of the central collective political demands of Palestinian citizens of Israel. Yet despite the scale of the mobilisation, criminal organisations continued to operate and killings did not significantly decline. More recently, the Israeli government has moved towards involving the Shin Bet directly in combating organised crime in Palestinian communities. The decision has generated significant opposition from Palestinian political leaders, civil society organisations, legal experts and former security officials. Their concern is not necessarily that criminal organisations should be left untouched. Rather, it is what happens when an intelligence service designed to deal with national security threats is introduced into the policing of a civilian minority. The issue has become even more sensitive following the appointment of David Zini as head of the Shin Bet, a controversial appointment because of his ideological positions and perceived political proximity to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The result is a shift in the way the problem is being framed: a civilian population demanding basic police protection increasingly finds itself treated through the language of national security. The social context None of this can be separated from the socioeconomic reality of Palestinian citizens of Israel. Large sections of Palestinian society continue to experience poverty, weak public infrastructure, housing shortages, limited employment opportunities and underinvestment in education and local government. At the same time, Israeli neoliberal economic policies have produced significant internal changes within Palestinian society. A small Palestinian middle class has emerged. More Palestinians are entering universities, the professions, technology, medicine, law, business and other sectors of the Israeli economy. Yet this mobility has not occurred evenly. Economic inequality within Palestinian society itself has widened. While one section has benefited from integration into the Israeli economy, another has remained trapped in poverty, unemployment, weak educational systems and geographically marginalised communities. One of the clearest indications is the number of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 who are neither studying nor working. Palestinian citizens of Israel rally against state inaction as crime surges Read More » A 2023 report by the Israeli State Comptroller found that approximately 25 percent of young Arab men and 34 percent of young Arab women in this age group were neither employed nor participating in education or vocational training. These figures were significantly higher than those in Jewish society. Large numbers of young people growing up without meaningful access to higher education, stable employment, vocational training or political hope create conditions in which criminal organisations can recruit. Organised crime flourishes in this gap. It provides money where the formal economy does not. It provides employment where legitimate opportunities are absent. It provides loans where banks refuse credit. And, most importantly, it provides power where state institutions are weak. This is why the explosion of organised crime in Palestinian society cannot be understood simply as a social problem. Law enforcement is essential. Weapons can be confiscated, criminal organisations dismantled, money-laundering networks disrupted and murderers prosecuted. But policing alone cannot explain why organised crime became so powerful in one specific segment of Israeli society while declining dramatically in another. The answer lies in the intersection of several processes: the successful dismantling of major Jewish criminal organisations; decades of underinvestment in Arab localities; weak policing and low trust in law enforcement; the availability of illegal weapons; socioeconomic inequality; the political marginalisation of Palestinian citizens; and the contradictions created by Israel’s broader security policies towards Palestinians. Together, these factors have turned organised crime from a criminal problem into a political one. For Palestinian citizens of Israel, the question is no longer whether the police can arrest particular criminals. The deeper question is why the state that demonstrated its ability to dismantle powerful organised crime organisations in Jewish society has failed for more than a decade to provide the same level of security to its Palestinian citizens. And that inevitably leads to a broader question: what does equal citizenship mean when the state's ability - and willingness - to provide something as fundamental as personal security differs so dramatically between its citizens?