Nationwide disruptions will be intensified to protest the rise in crime in the Arab community, Hadash-Ta’al chairman MK Ayman Odeh said Sunday, February 8. His remarks in an interview with The Jerusalem Post came as a mass protest convoy demonstrated against the rise in violent crime. The protest caused roadblocks along central highways and roads. Demonstrators then gathered at Jerusalem’s government complex outside the Knesset and the Prime Minister’s Office, leading to further traffic congestion.

Arab citizens in Israel protest outside the Prime Minister’s Office against the violence in their communities, February 8, 2026 (Photo: Al-Ittihad)

“We are disrupting things because we want them to listen to us,” Odeg told the Post. The next stages would involve a three-day general strike in the Arab Palestinian national minority in Israel. “We tell the state: ‘Our culture, our education, at home and at school, is successful with 99% of Arab citizens. Our problem is 1% of the Arab population. You need to deal with the 1% – the crime organizations,’” he added.

Last year was the deadliest year so far for the Arab sector in Israel, according to a December report by the Abraham Initiatives, an NGO that advances social inclusion and equal rights for Arab citizens. “The crime rate among Arabs inside the State of Israel exceeds that of Palestinians anywhere else in the world,” Odeh said. “I checked crime rates in Yemen, Qatar, and elsewhere. Over all the years combined, over all the years together, fewer than 250 Arabs were murdered. And now, in a single year [2025], more than 250 [were] murdered.” “I’m calling on Arab citizens and Jewish citizens: There is no half-society,” he said. “We live in one place, in one society, and we must struggle together for a healthy society, without weapons, without criminal organizations.”

The mass protest convoy arrived outside the Prime Minister’s Office on Sunday afternoon during a National Day of Protest, roads were blocked using vehicles to draw attention to this ongoing crisis. Instead of confronting violent crime and powerful criminal organizations, the police delayed protest convoys Protesters held up signs reading “[Prime Minister Benjanin] Netanyahu is responsible for the crime.” The demonstration blocked off streets in the government complex area. MK Ofer Cassif (Hadash) said speaking to The Post on Sunday. “The wall of fear has fallen. Tens of thousands of Arabs are rising up in a righteous and unprecedented struggle against violence, organized crime, and the government forces that enable them.” “Thousands of Jews are standing alongside them, turning this struggle into a powerful, shared fight filled with determination and hope,” Cassif told the Post. 

During the protest, the police tried to disperse the cars and themselves created horrible traffic — the goal is to impede the Arab public’s protest”, organizer Amjad Shbita, the Secretary General of Hadash, said in the early afternoon. Footage shared by organizers showed several Border Police officers in neon work vests after they appeared to have pulled over several cars to the side of the highway. “We are protesting, not impeding,” said Dr. Yousef Jabarin, a former Hadash MK in the convoy, to officers on the road. He added that the reason they are demonstrating at all is because police “aren’t doing their job.”

Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=33236