Thousands of residents in Sakhnin and neighboring Arab towns gathered yesterday, January 23, for a unified Friday prayer and mass protest at the Municipal Square, continuing a wave of strikes against escalating crime and violence. This local mobilization follows yesterday’s “historic” march, where over several tens of thousands Arab citizens rallied in the Sakhnin condemning the Israeli police’s systemic failure and complicity in the surge of internal violence.
The march was the largest demonstration to take place in recent years over soaring homicide rates in Arab society, with 20 people killed since the start of 2026, after homicides in the Arab community reached an all-time high in 2025. In last year 252 Palestinians were recorded killed in criminal incidents, an increase on the 230 cases recorded in 2024.
Hundreds demonstrated at Paulus Street, the main street of Nazareth, police’s systemic failure and complicity in the surge of internal violence, January 23, 2026 (Photo: Zo Haderekh)
The High Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens and the National Committee of Arab Local Authorities have declared a comprehensive general strike across several towns. In Sakhnin, the strike has been extended until Sunday. Protesters are demanding that Israeli authorities take immediate responsibility for public safety, asserting that the current security vacuum is a direct result of political negligence targeting the Arab community.
Rallies were also held on Friday in Nazareth Tamra, Kabul, I’billin and Hemed Junction near Jerusalem with participation from Abu Gosh, Beit Nekofa and Ein Rafa
According to Hadash MK Ofer Cassif, “More than 100,000 Palestinians and Jews in Israel protested the racist, Jewish-supremacist government’s failure to protect Arab citizens of Israel from the scourge of organized crime. The crime that has been allowed to run rampant in Arab towns and cities is not an accident, it is the result of deliberate government policy. Genocidal racists like Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben‑Gvir understand that to keep a population oppressed, you must destroy it from within. At Sakhnin, we stood strong, Arabs and Jews together, and made it clear to the government that we will never allow that to happen. We will continue fighting for peace, equality, and safety for all, no matter what their race, religion, or creed.”
Hadash MK Aida Touma-Sleiman said that what is taking place is “not merely a passing protest, but a day that will be recorded in the history of the Arab Palestinian public in Israel.” She added that the strike and mass demonstrations reflect the national minority’s effort to defend its “right to life,” accusing the government of what she described as using criminal gangs to suppress the public “instead of cooperating with it to suppress those gangs.”
Touma-Sleiman said the strike marks “the launch of the first phase of a struggle that will not end today,” pointing to a cumulative, escalating path that will employ economic, political, and social tools until “the state feels the same paralysis that criminal gangs have imposed on our daily lives.”
On Saturday afternoon, the High Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens announced another mass Arab-Jewish demonstration to be held next Saturday, January 31, in Central Tel-Aviv.
Meanwhile, a day after the Arab protesters took to the streets in the city of Sakhnin as part of a general strike demanding police rein in a relentless violent crime wave besetting the community, three people suffered light and moderate wounds in a car explosion on Route 65 near the Arab town of Ar’ara in northern Israel on Friday. The Magen David Adom ambulance service said three women were wounded in the explosion, including one who was moderately injured and two who were lightly hurt. The three were evacuated to the Afula Medical Center, according to MDA.
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=33205
