Palestinian with Israeli citizenship shot dead in Galilee-area town
Nov. 19, 2016 3:21 P.M. (Updated: Nov. 19, 2016 4:01 P.M.)
▻http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?ID=774036
GALILEE (Ma’an) — A Palestinian with Israeli citizenship was shot dead in the town of Kafr Kanna in northern Israel on Saturday.
Israeli police spokeswoman Luba al-Samri identified the slain Palestinian as 48-year-old Anan Hakroush, adding in her statement that Hakroush was shot while in a private vehicle near the Mercantile Bank in the Galilee.
According to al-Samri, he was found with several gunshot injuries in his vehicle and was evacuated to a hospital near Tiberias, where he was later pronounced dead.
Local sources in Kafr Kanna told Ma’an that the victim’s uncle Jamal Hakroush is a high-ranking official in the Israeli police, in charge of improving police services in Palestinian neighborhoods in Israel.
Palestinian-majority neighborhoods in Israel have seen an increase in gun violence in recent years, while members of the Arab Joint List of Israel’s parliament, the Kneseet, have called on authorities to crack down on illegal weapons in Israel’s Palestinian communities, where there is a disproportionate lack of policing compared to Jewish-majority neighborhoods.
MK Yousef Jabareen of the Joint List has warned against a rise in policing of Palestinian communities in the form of punitive action such as housing demolitions, rather than protecting Palestinian citizens of Israel from criminal violence.
“This is an issue that desperately requires reform rather than punishment,” Jabareen told Ma’an in April.
“It is important that the police adopt a new policy and attitude towards the Arab community. [...] Without this, the mere establishment of additional police stations and an increase in policing may result in increased tension and confrontation between our community and the police, rather than effective policing of crime and violence.”