The Northern District Attorney’s Office filed a prosecutor’s statement on Monday against two suspects, a 33-year-old resident of Kafr Kanna and a 21-year-old resident of Haifa, on suspicion of firing at the home of Police Commissioner Jamal Hakrush about two months ago.
Hakrush, Israel’s first-ever Arab Muslim police commissioner, heads a special unit to fight crime in the Arab sector. The two suspects are believed to have shot at his house with automatic weapons. No one was injured in the incident.
Reports indicate that Hakrush tried to mediate between rival families in Kafr Kanna, but the suspect, a lawyer by profession and member of one of the families, did not like it and fired warning shots at his house.
Police and Shin Bet investigators carried out a series of intelligence and operational activities that led to the identification and arrest of the suspects. One was arrested at his home and the other when he returned from vacation.
At the request of the police, the Magistrate’s Court in Nazareth extended the suspects’ detention until Thursday.
“The Israel Police takes the use of gunfire and violence as a means of inciting terrorism and fear against civilians seriously and does everything in its power to bring the culprits to justice,” it stated Monday.
“When this terror is used against the servants of the law enforcement system, symbols of government and elected officials – this endangers not only the lives of the threatened and their environment but the rule of law as a whole. Any harm or attempt to harm the symbols of government and state will receive a quick and severe response from all security forces,” it added.
The Arab sector has been suffering from a wave of crime in violence in recent years. Arab-Israeli society is plagued with daily incidents of violence. Over 110 Arabs were killed in criminal violence in 2020 and at least 110 so far in 2021.
The police increased its activity against the plague of shootings and weapons offenses in recent years, and in 2020 arrested 5,713 suspects in shootings and other weapons crimes throughout the country, an increase of 22% compared to 2019.
The vast majority of police activity was carried out in the Arab sector, and about 90% of the suspects arrested for shooting and weapons offenses were Arab Israelis.
Approximately 85% of the indictments filed in Israel in 2020 for shooting, illegal possession of weapons, trafficking, and illegal use of weapons have been filed against suspects from the Arab society.