Father’s anger exposes divide in Israeli society

“I’m so angry,” said Kasem Abu al-Hija, 67.

On Saturday, four of his family members were killed when an Iranian missile struck their house in northern Israel, collapsing the concrete building above them.

Books, clothing, children’s toys and body parts were blown on the road, say the witnesses.

The whole street was plunged into darkness when the missile struck. The rescuers managed to locate their bodies by following blood trails.

The four victims were named Kasem’s daughter, Manar Khatib, 45, his two granddaughters, Shada, 20 and Hala, 13, and their aunt, Manal Khatib, 41.

They had managed to go to the two reinforced safety rooms of the house they shared – but the ballistic missile struck it directly.

They lived in Tamra, an Arab majority city in northern Israel.

A few minutes after their death, a video emerged online. He showed that Iranian missiles passed through the sky above. Going down on Tamra, a voice can be heard shouting, in Hebrew: “In the village, in the village.”

“Let your village burns,” say a group of others, singing, dreamers and applauding.

“They sang what happened to my family,” said Kasem, slowly, surrounded by relatives during a vigil.

The video – which shows the Israelis singing a common anti -arab song often sung by ultra -nationalist Jews – was largely condemned in Israel, President Isaac Herzog calling him “appalling and shameful”.

But there are more reasons why Kasem and the community in the broad sense of Tamra are angry with what happened.

Here – as is the case with many Arab majority communities in Israel – there is no shelters of public bombs for its 38,000 residents.

By way of comparison, the city of Maje Majori nearby Karmiel, 55,000 inhabitants, has 126 public shelters.

Tamra residents have long raised the alarm on the disparity. Located in northern Israel, about 10 km (6 miles) east of the city of Haifa and 25 km (16 miles) south of the border with Lebanon, the city was vulnerable to the rockets pulled by the Lebanese group supported by Iran, Hezbollah. In October 2024, a rocket pulled by the group seriously injured a woman.

Through Israel, about a quarter of the population does not have access to an appropriate shelter. But in non -Jewish local authorities, the figure is almost half, according to a 2018 report from the Israel State controller, the most recent data available.

“For many decades, the Arab local authorities have received lower funding from the State in various fields, including emergency preparation,” said Lital Piller of the Israel Democracy Institute, a reflection group.

Where shelters exist, she says: “They are few, poorly maintained and often are not suitable for prolonged stays”.

The BBC approached the Israeli Defense Ministry for Comments.

Israeli Arabs – many of whom prefer to be called Palestinian citizens of Israel – constitute a fifth of the country’s population. According to the law, they have equal rights with Jewish citizens, but they regularly complain about the discrimination of the State and to be treated as second -class citizens.

After the 1990-1991 Gulf War, when Iraqi missiles struck Tel Aviv and Haifa, the Israeli government demanded that all new residential buildings must contain a reinforced security room, or Mamad, as we know.

But Arab communities are often faced with difficult planning restrictions, which leads to unregulated construction and the construction of houses without them, according to activists.

About 40% of Tamra houses have their own security room, according to local authorities, leaving the majority of residents to come to neighbors to share. In many cases, due to the short warning period, this is not possible.

“The gaps are enormous,” explains Ilan Amit, from the Arab-Jewish center for empowerment, equality and cooperation (AJECE), which strives to build shelters in the Arab communities. “I live in Jerusalem. Each building has a bomb shelter. Each district has a public bomb shelter.”

While Dark falls in Tamra, resident phones light up simultaneously with a howling alert: “You must stay near a protected area.”

The sirens soon follow, and the residents – fresh for the trauma of the Saturday strike – panic. Mothers bring together their children and people run the street, shouting. Several families collapse in the room of a house. Some cry, a little smile, others contract nervously. A man closes his eyes and prays. Boom after the boom is heard above the head.

The problem of the refuge is even more pronounced in the Bedouin Arab communities of Israel – many of which live in villages of the Negev desert which are not recognized by the Israeli government, therefore do not have shelters built for them.

The only victim of the April 2024 escalation in hostilities between Israel and Iran was a young girl from one of these communities who was seriously injured and spent a year in hospital after fragments of an Iranian missile struck his head.

Lack of shelters is also a widespread problem in some of the poorest Jewish communities in Israel in regions like the southern Aviv.

A new survey by the Hebrew University revealed that 82.7% of Jewish Israelis support the attack on Iran – but 67.9% of the Arab Israelis oppose it. In addition, 69.2% of Arab Israelis reported feelings of fear above strikes – with 25.1% expressing despair.

“Arab society feels neglected and left,” explains Amit. “There are huge gaps in education and employment. There are huge gaps in shelters, in the existence of shelters.”

Adel Khatib, a municipal official in Tamra, says: “In the days that followed, you may feel anger.”

“We do not get the basic needs,” says Khatib. “Most Arab communities, they do not have community centers or buildings for culture, activities.”

According to official Israeli statistics, in 2023, 42.4% of the Arab population lived below the poverty line – more than double the proportion of the general population of Israel.

There have been attempts in recent years to fill these shortcomings. In 2021, the previous government of Israel brought a five -year development plan for Arab society.

“We were in the middle of a huge jump in social economic development, by shrinking the gaps in education, higher education and employment,” explains Amit.

But the current right coalition of Israel, the hardest line of its history, has slowly reduced funding for this plan – redirect money elsewhere.

Some of these cuts occurred while the government has adjusted the budgets to fight against the current war in Gaza, which started in response to the cross -border attack led by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

“This government has simply put, you know, leftovers in the wheels of this five -year plan, not allowing to implement large parts,” adds Amit.

“During the last year and a half, Arab society has been found between a rock and a hard place in the sense that on the one hand, they suffer from the policies of the current government, and on the other hand, they see their brothers and sisters in Gaza and in the suffering of the West Bank because of the war,” he said.

Apart from the ruins of the family home, Mohamed Osman, 16, a neighbor, says: “Everyone is angry and sad.”

Speaking of Shada, 20, he said: “She studied all her life. She wanted to be the best. Her father is a lawyer, and she wanted to be like him. All these dreams have just disappeared.

“They were the best image of a happy family … When I imagine them, I imagine the pieces of them I saw.”

During a vigil before the funeral, dozens of members of the community come together, greeting with hand handles, sharing coffee and tea and crying quietly.

“The bombs do not choose between the Arabs or the Jews,” explains Kasem. “We have to end this war. We have to end it now.”

Tom Bennett photographs