Dozens of people gathered outside the house of Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev on Saturday evening, in order to protest against the rising murder rates and continued violence in Israel's Arab communities.
According to Ynet, the protest was led by the mothers of victims murdered in the Arab sector and an estimated 120 people attended the protest in total.
Two murders over the weekend have brought the 2021 death toll in Israeli-Arab communities to 92, with over three months still to go until the end of the year.
Of the 92 deaths recorded this year, six of them happened in the last week alone.
56-year-old Naim Suri was killed in Nazareth on Friday, and Haifa resident Hussam Otman, age 30, was shot dead in the road late on Friday night.
In addition to both deaths, multiple people were injured in violent incidents on Friday, including two men who were injured in Umm al-Fahm, and a six-year-old who is in critical condition in hospital after being shot.
"I want to know who killed my son," one bereaved mother at the demonstration said in a statement expressing her pain at the ongoing situation. "I am constantly with the police and the prosecution team in Haifa, but I was told there was no evidence," she told Ynet.
"I'm hopeless, I know who murdered my son, and the police won't do anything about it. Today we will meet with the MK Bar Lev and tell him everything on our minds. It's an important meeting, but it's a shame that [Bar Lev] didn't come out to see us yesterday, and the police tried to stop us from protesting outside his house." said another mother.
Joint List chairman Ayman Odeh was also present at the demonstration.
המשטרה לא מאפשרת למפגינים ולמפגינות להגיע לביתו של השר לבטחון פנים בר לב.המשטרה מבקשת מהםן להמתין לצאת השבת.הכניסה מותרת כרגע רק לעיתונאים.ות#הארץ21 pic.twitter.com/1gttomtGTL
— Natalie Alz (@Natalie_Alz) September 25, 2021
According to reports shared by activists on Twitter, protestors who arrived to demonstrate outside Bar Lev's house were told by police that they were not permitted to protest in the area and that it is forbidden to protest outside the houses of politicians during Shabbat.