“Not for you”: Israeli shelters exclude the Palestinians when the bombs are rained Israel Iran

When Iranian missiles began raining on Israel, many residents rushed to cover. Warning sirens spread throughout the country while people rushed to bombs.

But for some Palestinian citizens from Israel 2 million people, or nearly 21 percent of the population, have been closed – doors, not by the power of explosions and not by enemies, but by neighbors and citizens.

Mostly, they live in cities, towns, and villages within the internationally recognized borders of Israel, many Palestinian citizens in Israel have found themselves excluded from life -saving infrastructure during the worst nights of Iran and Israel’s conflict so far.

For Samar Al -Rash, a 29 -year -old single mother who lives in a Jewish residential complex near Aker, the truth of this exclusion came on Friday night. Samar was at home with her five -year -old daughter, Jihan. When the alarm sirens penetrated the air, a warning from the incoming missiles, her daughter grabbed and rushed to the building’s shelter.

“I had no time to firmly,” she recalled. “Just water and our phones and the hand of my daughter in me.”

The painful mother tried to relieve her daughter’s fear, while she was hiding her, and she gently encouraged her in the Arabic language speaking to keep pace with her steps falling towards the shelter, as the other neighbors also rose to the stairs.

But at the door of shelter, she said, an Israeli resident, after she heard her speaking Arabic, closed her entry – and closed him in their faces.

She said, “I am surprised.” “I am talking fluently

At that moment, Samar said, the deep rift lines of the Israeli society were placed. She was climbing to her apartment and looking at the distant missiles, the sky shines, sometimes spent on the ground, and was terrified of both eyes, and its neighbors.

Exclusion date

Palestinian citizens in Israel have long faced regular discrimination – in housing, education, employment and state services. Despite the detention of Israeli citizenship, they often treat second -class citizens, and their loyalty is routinely interrogated in public discourse.

According to Adalah-Legal Center for the Rights of Arab Minorities in Israel, more than 65 laws are directly or indirectly distinguished against Palestinian citizens. In 2018, the nation -state law gave this contrast by defining Israel as the “nation -state of the Jewish people”, as critics say about the institutional chapter system.

In times of war, this distinction is often intensified.

Palestinian citizens are often exposed to Israel Distinguished Police And restrictions during conflict periods, including The arrest of social media publicationsDenial of access to shelters, and verbal abuse in mixed cities.

Many have already reported the experience of such a distinction.

In Haifa, Mohamed Dabdo, 33, was working on his repair store on Saturday evening when he rang at one -time phones, all of which were in the voice of alerts, which led to his concern. Try to finish repairing a broken phone, which led to its delay. Then he rushed to close the store and run towards the nearest general shelter, below a building behind his store. He approached the shelter, his strong door found closed.

“I tried the code. It did not succeed. I got on the door, and I called those inside to open – in the Hebrew language – and waited. No one opened, he said. Moments later, a missile exploded nearly, shattered the glass across the street. “I thought I would die.”

“There was smoke and screaming, and after a quarter of an hour, all we could hear is the sounds of the police and so -and -so. 2020 Beirut port explosion.

Muhammad watched his place hiding in a parking lot soon when chaos was detected, and soon, he opened the door for shelter. When those who were inside the shelter began to go out, they looked silently.

“There is no real safety for us,” he said. “It is not a missile, and it is not one of the people who are supposed to be our neighbors.”

Discrimination in access to shelter

In theory, all citizens of Israel should have equal access to public safety measures – including bombs. In practice, the image is very different.

Palestinian cities and villages in Israel have a much less protected areas than Jewish areas. According to the 2022 report issued by the state observer in Israel, which was quoted by Harries, more than 70 percent of homes in Palestinian societies in Israel lack a safe room or space that reaches a symbol, compared to 25 percent of Jewish homes. Municipalities often get less civil defense financing, and old buildings go without the required reinforcements.

Even in mixed cities such as Lydd (Lod), where Jewish and Palestinian population lives side by side, inequality is equal.

YARA SROR, 22 -year -old Nursing, lives at the University of Hebrew, in the neglected Mahaota neighborhood in Leeded. The three -storey building, which is about four decades, lacks official and shelter permits. In the aftermath of the heavy Iranian shelling that they witnessed on Saturday evening, which was shocked by the world around them, the family at early Sunday tried to escape to a safer part of the city.

“We went to the new part of the Lydd where there are appropriate shelters,” Yara said, adding that her 48 -year -old mother, who suffers from the weak knees, was struggling to move. “However, they were not allowed to enter. The Jews have been removed from the poorest areas. It was only for the” new population “-those in modern buildings, most of whom are middle-class Jewish families.”

Yara remembers horror clearly.

She said: “My mother suffers from common problems and could not run like us.” “We were begging, knocking on the doors. But people looked at us through the openings and ignored us, while we saw the sky shining with the usual missile fires.”

Fear, shock and anger

Samar said that the experience of moving away from a shelter with her daughter left a psychological scar.

“That night, I felt completely lonely,” she said. “I did not inform her of the police – what is the point? They did not.”

Later that evening, a villa was injured in Tamla, Four women from the same family were killed. From her honor, I saw Samar Al -Dukhan rising in the sky.

“I felt like the end of the world,” she said. “However, even under the attack, we treated a threat, not as people.”

She has since moved with her daughter to her parents ’house in Daburia, a village in the lower Galilee. Together, they can now gather in a reinforced room. With upcoming alerts every few hours, Samar thinks about fleeing to Jordan.

“I wanted to protect Jihan. It doesn’t know this world yet. But I also didn’t want to leave my earth. This is the dilemma for us – alive, or survival and suffering.”

While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated after the attacks that “Iran missiles target all Israel – Jews and Arabs alike,” he told the ground a different story.

Even before the war, Palestinian citizens in Israel have been arrested inappropriately due to the expression of political views or the response to the attacks. Some were detained just for the deployment of expressive symbols on social media. On the other hand, invitations to vigilance against Palestinians in the online forums were greatly ignored.

“The state expects our loyalty to the war,” said Mohamed Dabdoub. “But when it is time to protect us, we are not visible.”

For Samar, Yara, Muhammad, and thousands like them, the message is clear: they are citizens on paper, but strangers are in practice.

Yara said: “I want safety like anyone else.” “I am studying to become a nurse. I want to help people. But how can I serve a country that will not protect my mother?”

This piece was published in cooperation with egab.