The Israel Police clashed with a group of men they said were shooting at a house Feb. 1 outside the Arab town of Tamra. It was part of a larger effort by the police to combat rising crime in Arab society. A firefight broke out when the gang started shooting at the police with automatic weapons. When it was over, two young people were dead. One was suspected of firing at the house, but the other, Ahmed Hijazi, was a nursing student who happened to be in the vicinity but was not implicated in the incident. Internal Affairs arrived at the scene immediately after the shooting and began interrogating the police officers involved.

The next day, thousands of people from Tamra and other Arab towns and villages took to the street to protest Hijazi’s death and the police's inability to rein in crime in Arab society. Over the weekend, thousands more took part in a march through the city to protest escalating crime rates in the community. Ayman Odeh, the head of the Joint List, was among the participants. He told the crowd, “If the victim were Jewish, the whole country would grind to a halt. The role of government and the police is to stop bloodshed, not to shed even more blood.”

A group of Arab journalists announced that they plan to protest what happened by leaving the police spokesperson’s WhatsApp groups. They explained, “This decision is intended to protest police statements that consistently blame the victim and the Arab sector, of which we are a part.”

Ali Mughrabi of Channel 13 News appealed directly to Israel’s decision-makers, saying, “As I wander about Arab society, I am personally witness to a torrential flood of bloodshed. My children hear gunfire every single day and can already distinguish between pistol fire and fireworks.” He later told Radio 103 about his decision to leave the police WhatsApp group, explaining, “We saw how the police lie to our faces with the statements they send through the spokesperson’s office. They think we work for them. They consider Arab journalists a tool to relay their message, not something that operates in a critical and supervisory capacity.”