Father’s anger exposes division in Israeli society

“I’m so angry,” says Kasem Abu Al-Hija, 67.

On Saturday, four of his family members were killed when an Iranian rocket hit their home in northern Israel, collapsed the concrete building on top of them.

Books, clothes, toys and parts of the body were blown up on the road, witnesses say.

The whole street was immersed in darkness when the rocket struck. The rescuers were able to find their bodies, following traces of blood.

The four casualties were declared the daughter of Kasem Monar Hatib, 45 years old, his two granddaughters, Shada, 20 and Halas, 13, and their aunt, Malib Hatib, 41.

They were able to reach the two reinforced safe rooms in the house that they share – but the ballistic rocket hit it directly.

They lived in Tamara, a city of an Arab majority in North Israel.

Minutes after their death, a video appeared online. He showed the Iranian missiles piercing through the sky above his head. As they descend to Tamara, in Hebrew, a voice can be heard to shout, “to the village, to the village.”

“Let your village burn,” says a group of others who say, sing, donkey and clap.

“They sang about what happened to my family,” says Tyko Kassem, surrounded by relatives at vigil.

The video – which shows that the Israelis who sing an ordinary anti -Arab chants, often a furnace of ultra -nationalist Jews – is widely condemned in Israel, as President Isaac the Duke calls him “horrifying and shameful.”

But there are other reasons that Kassem and the wider community in Tamra are angry about what happened.

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

For comparison, the nearby Jewish-MINISTRY City of Karmiel, a population of 55,000, has 126 public shelters.

The residents of Tamra have long raised the alarm because of the difference. Situated north of Israel, about 10 km (6 miles) east of the town of Haifa and 25 km (16 miles) south of the border with Lebanon, the city is vulnerable to rockets fired by Iran -backed Lebanese Hezbollah group. In October 2024, a rocket fired by the group seriously injured a woman.

In Israel, about a quarter of the population do not have access to a suitable shelter. But in the non-Jewish local authorities, the figure is almost half, according to a 2018 report of Israel’s state controller, the latest data available.

“For many decades, Arab local authorities have received more state funding in different areas, including a willingness to emerge,” said Lithal Piller of the Israeli Institute of Democracy, Brain Trust.

Where the shelters exist, it says, “They are small, poorly maintained and often not suitable for prolonged stay.”

BBC turned to Israel’s Defense Ministry for commentS

Israeli Arabs – many of whom prefer to be called Palestinian citizens of Israel – make up the fifth of the country’s population. By law, they have equal rights with Jewish citizens, but routinely complain of state discrimination and are treated as second grade citizens.

After the Gulf War of 1990-91, when the Iraqi missiles struck in Tel Aviv and Haifa, the Israeli government required all new residential buildings to contain a reinforced safe room or Mamad, as they are known.

But Arab communities are often confronted with difficult planning restrictions, leading to unregulated construction and homes that are built without them, activists say.

About 40% of Tamra’s homes have their own safe room, local authorities say, leaving the greater part of the residents to run into the homes of neighbors to share. In many cases, due to the short warning period, this is not possible.

“The gaps are huge,” says Ilan Amit of the Arabian-Jewish Center for Employment, Equality and Cooperation (Ajeec), which works to build shelters in Arab communities. “I live in Jerusalem. Every building has a bomb shelter. Every neighborhood has a shelter for public bombs.”

As the dark falls in Tamra, residents’ phones light up at the same time with a screaming signal: “You have to stay close to the protected area.”

The sirens soon follow, and the residents are fresh from the trauma of the strike on Saturday – panic. Mothers gather their children and people run down the street and shout. Several families embark on the safe room of a house. Some cry, some smile, others tremble nervously. One person closes his eyes and prays. Boom after the boom is heard from above.

The problem with the shelter is even more pronounced in the Arab Bedouin communities of Israel – many of whom live in the villages in the Negev Desert, which are not recognized by the Israeli government, so they have not been built shelters.

The only victim of April 2024 escalation in war between Israel and Iran was a young girl from such a community who was seriously injured and spent a year in hospital after fragments of an Iranian rocket hit her head.

The lack of shelters is also a predominant problem in some of the more overwhelming Jewish communities in Israel in areas such as South of Tel Aviv.

A new study conducted by the Jewish University found that 82.7% of Jewish Israelis support the attack on Iran – but 67.9% of Arab Israelis opposed it. In addition, 69.2% of Arab Israelis report a sense of fear of strikes – with 25.1% expressing despair.

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

Adele Hatib, a municipal employee from Tamra, says: “In the days since this happened, you can feel anger.”

“We don’t get the basic needs,” Hatib says. “Most of the 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 twice as large as the ratio of the total population of Israel.

In recent years, there have been attempts to close these gaps. In 2021, the previous government of Israel submitted a five -year plan for the development of Arab society.

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

But the current ruling right -wing coalition in Israel, the most firm in its history, slowly reduced funding for this plan – it diverts money elsewhere.

Some of these abbreviations came when the government corrected budgets to combat the ongoing war in Gaza, which began in response to a cross -border attack, led by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people and 251 others were hostage.

“This government just puts it, you know, sticks in the wheels of this five -year plan without allowing wide parts of it,” Amit adds.

“In the last year and a half, Arab society has found itself between a rock and a difficult place in the sense that, on the one hand, they suffer from the policies of the current government, and on the other, they see their brothers and sisters in Gaza and in the West coast, suffering from war,” he says.

Outside the ruins of the Mohammed Osman Family House, 16 years old, says, “Everyone is angry and sad.”

Speaking of the 20 -year -old Shada, he says, “She studied all her life. She wanted to be the best. Her father is a lawyer and wanted to be like him. All these dreams just disappeared.

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

At a vigil before the funeral, dozens of community members gather, congratulate each other with handshake, sharing coffee and tea and mourning quietly.

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

Photos by Tom Bennett