Palestinian woman with Israeli citizenship shot dead while driving in northern Israel

A Palestinian woman from the village of al-Rama in northern Israel’s Upper Galilee was shot dead on Monday, according to Israeli police, Maan News reported.

Israeli police spokeswoman Luba al-Samri said in a statement that gunshots were fired at 35-year-old Lina Ahmad’s car while she was driving, killing her immediately.

She added that police detectives were investigating the shooting.

Palestinian-majority areas in Israel have seen an increase in gun violence in recent years, while members of the Arab Joint List of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, 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.

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MK Yousif Jabarin of the Joint List 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,” Jabarin told Ma’an in April 2016.

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.

In a Knesset meeting in January, Joint List MK Usama Saadi called illegal firearms “a cancer in the body of Arab society” – using the Israeli term to refer to Palestinian citizens of Israel.

“We have constantly warned about this, but there is an outcry only when the weapons are directed — once — at Tel Aviv,” referring to a shooting carried out by a Palestinian citizen of Israel in Tel Aviv in January 2016 that killed two Israelis and injured seven.