Gabriel Colodro traces [1] how a grim number—35 killings in Israel’s Arab communities in the first 36 days of 2026—stopped being a statistic and turned into a national confrontation. The death toll didn’t hinge on one headline-grabbing massacre; it accumulated in a steady drip of shootings and bombings across Arab towns and mixed cities, until “disturbingly familiar” became the mood.
The scale is hard to ignore. Using Taub Center research based on Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) comparisons, the piece cites a homicide rate of about 11.7 per 100,000 in Israel’s Arab society, versus an OECD average of 3.1. Among Jewish Israelis, the rate is roughly 0.74. Colodro also maps the trend line: 74 homicides in 2018, more than 100 by 2022, and 252 in 2025 in the Arab sector—an escalation that has outgrown the “spike” label.
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The reporting then tightens around the human cost and the institutions under strain. Families describe cases that stall, investigations that go cold, and a sense that once the first news cycle passes, the dead are filed away. At the Knesset, bereaved parents sought visibility rather than spectacle, only to see the moment disrupted when Likud lawmaker Tally Gotliv shouted, “Everyone should give up their weapons.”
Street pressure followed. Thousands of Arab and Jewish citizens rallied in Tel Aviv in what organizers called an unprecedented anti-crime protest, the first mass civilian demonstration on a domestic issue since the hostage rallies. Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas told The Media Line, “The beginning of the solution is to replace the minister of national security, Ben-Gvir, with another, professional minister who will provide answers…”
For a full picture—data, politics, and voices from the families—read the full account by Gabriel Colodro [1].