RAMALLAH: About a million and a half Palestinian citizens living in Israel are at the mercy of organized crime gangs operating largely with impunity in their communities. The activities of the gangs resulted in the deaths of 125 people in 2021, 62 of whom were below the age of 30, and another 14 have died since the start of this year.
According to police in Israel, seven criminal gangs are active in Arab communities. Some of their members previously worked as “contractors” for Jewish crime organizations but by 2016 many of these had been dismantled and Arab gangs filled the vacuum, with tens of thousands of weapons at their disposal.
A number of factors fuel organized crime and the violence that comes with it within Arab…