Two Palestinian-Israeli brothers killed in West Bank city of Tulkarm amid ongoing crime wave

Two Palestinian-Israeli brothers were shot dead overnight in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, in an incident that appears to be part of a spate of recent murders affecting Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Shafa Abu Hussein and his brother Salah, both in their 20s and residing in the Palestinian-Israeli city of Baqa al-Gharbiya, were killed in a drive-by shooting. Unknown assailants in a car with Israeli licence plates targeted them. The motive remains unclear.

In October, the victims’ mother was shot dead in their hometown. The murder was followed by that of three more of their relatives in December.

In a separate incident overnight on Friday, 69 suspects were arrested in the central Israel city of Ramla following reports of gunfire in the Gan Haqal neighbourhood.

Two feuding families were said to have been shooting and hurling stones and Molotov cocktails at each other, according to Israeli media. A police officer was lightly wounded from gunfire during the chaos.

Read also: Three Palestinian-Israeli men shot dead in latest killing of crime wave

Three young men, all Palestinian citizens of Israel, were shot dead earlier this month in the town of Deir al-Asad and the village of Ibtin in the Galilee region in northern Israel. Several other people, including two children, were injured.

Demonstrations against the high rate of crime in Palestinian communities in Israel and the apparent indifference of Israeli police to the issue have so far yielded little success in stemming the violence.

Palestinian-Israelis live within Israel’s 1948 boundaries and make up roughly 20% of the Israeli population. They hold Israeli citizenship but are widely discriminated against and many of their communities suffer from neglect.

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