When Iranian missiles began to rain on Israel, many residents rushed to cover them. The sirens cried across the country as people rushed into bomb shelter.
But for some Palestinian citizens of Israel – 2 million people, about 21% of the population – The door was slammed, not by the power of the explosion rather than by the enemy, but by the neighbors and fellow citizens.
Many cities, towns and villages living within the borders of Israel’s internationally recognized, and many Palestinian citizens found themselves excluded from life-saving infrastructure during the worst nights of the Iran-Israel conflict to date.
For Samar al-Rashed, a single mother of 29 years old who lives in a Jewish apartment building near Acre, the reality was Friday night. Samar is at home with her five-year-old daughter Jihan. As the siren pierced into the air, she grabbed her daughter and rushed to the shelter of the building.
“I didn’t have time to pack anything,” she recalled. “Just water, our phone, and my daughter in my hands.”
The panicked mother tried to ease her daughter’s fear while hiding her own, gently encouraging her to follow her hastily step towards the shelter as other neighbors climbed down the stairs as well.
But at the door of the shelter, she said an Israeli resident heard her speak Arabic, blocked their entry and locked it in their faces.
“I was stunned,” she said. “I spoke Hebrew. I tried to explain. But he looked at me with contempt and said, ‘Not for you.'”
At that moment, the deep faults in Israeli society were exposed. Climbing back to her apartment and watching the distant missiles illuminate the sky, occasionally colliding with the ground, she was terrified of her sight and neighbors.
Exclude history
Palestinian citizens in Israel have long faced systemic discrimination – housing, education, employment and state services. Despite having Israeli citizenship, they are often regarded as second-class citizens and often question their loyalty in public discourse.
According to Adalah, the Israeli Law Center for Arab Minority Rights, more than 65 laws directly or indirectly discriminate against Palestinian citizens. One critic said the nation-state law passed in 2018 consolidated the gap by defining Israel as a “Jewish nation-state.”
This discrimination is often exacerbated during war times.
Palestinian citizens of Israel are often affected Discriminatory policing and restrictions during conflict, including Arrest social media postsverbal abuse of refusing to enter shelters and mixed cities.
Many people have reported this kind of discrimination.
In Haifa, Mohammed Dabdoob, 33, worked at his mobile repair shop on Saturday night, when the phones were filled with alarms, triggering his anxiety. He tried to complete the repair of the damaged call, which delayed him. He then hurriedly closed the store and ran to the nearest public shelter beneath a building behind the nearest store. He approached the shelter and found its sturdy door locked.
He said, “I tried the code. It didn’t work. I bumped into the door, opened those people inside in Hebrew, and waited. No one opened.” A moment later, a missile exploded nearby and glass broke across the street. “I thought I was going to die.”
“There was smoke and screaming, one quarter of an hour, all we could hear was the sound of police and ambulances. The scene was frightening, as if I was living, like a nightmare in the port of Beirut,” he added, referring to 2020 Beirut port explosion.
Mohammed freezes with sheer fear and shock, and as the chaos unfolds, he stares at the hiding place in the nearby parking lot, and soon the door to the shelter opened. He looked at them silently as the people in the shelter began to drip.
“For us, there is no real security,” he said. “It’s not from missiles, nor from people who should be our neighbors.”
Discrimination in shelters
In theory, all citizens of Israel should have equal access to public safety measures – including bomb shelters. In fact, the pictures are very different.
Israel has significantly less space for protected Palestinian towns and villages than in Jewish areas. According to a 2022 report by the Israeli state auditor general, more than 70% of Israel’s Palestinian communities lack safe rooms or space, compared with 25% of Jews. Municipalities usually receive less funding for civil defense, while old buildings do not have the reinforcements needed.
Inequality is pronounced even in mixed cities such as Lydd (LOD), where Jews and Palestinian residents live side by side.
Yara Srour, a 22-year-old nursing student at Hebrew University, lives in the Al-Mahatta neighborhood of Lydd. Her family’s three-story building is about forty years old and lacks official permits and shelter. The world around them was shocked by the Iranian bombing witnessed Saturday night, and the family tried to flee to safer areas of the city earlier on Sunday.
“We went to the new part of Lydd, where there was a proper shelter,” Yara said. Her 48-year-old mother (weak knees, all struggling to move. “But they won’t let us in. Jews from poor areas were also turned away. This only applies to ‘new residents’ – Jews in modern architecture, mainly middle-class Jewish families.”
Yara vividly recalls the horror.
“My mother had a common problem and couldn’t run like the rest of us,” she said. “We were begging, knocking on the door. But people were just looking at us through the peephole and ignoring us, and we saw the sky glittering with intercepted rocket shootings.”
Fear, trauma and anger
Samal said the experience of leaving the shelter with her daughter left a psychological scar.
“I felt totally lonely that night,” she said. “I didn’t report to the police – what’s the point? They won’t do anything.”
Later that night, a villa in Tamra was hit Kill four women from the same family. Samar watched from her balcony as the smoke rose into the sky.
“It feels like the end of the world,” she said. “Nevertheless, even under attack, we are seen as threats, not as humans.”
Since then, she and her daughter moved to the parents’ home in Daburiyya, a village in Lower Galilee. Now, they can squeeze in reinforced rooms. Alarms are issued every few hours and Samal is considering escaping to Jordan.
“I want to protect Jihan. She doesn’t know the world yet. But I don’t want to leave my land either. It’s our dilemma – to survive or stay and suffer.”
“Iran’s missiles target Israel’s entire Israel – Jews and Arabs,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the attack, “The reality on the ground tells a different story.
Even before the war, Israel’s Palestinian citizens were arrested disproportionately for expressing political views or responding to attacks. Some were detained simply for posting emojis on social media. In contrast, online forums call for vigilance against sexual violence against Palestinians.
“The state expects our loyalty in the war,” said Mohammed Dabdoob. “But when it comes to protecting us, we are invisible.”
For Samar, Yara, Mohammed and thousands of similar messages, the message is clear: they are citizens on paper, but in practice are strangers.
“I want to be as safe as everyone else,” Yara said. “I’m learning to be a nurse. I want to help people. But how do I serve a country that doesn’t protect my mother?”
This article was published in collaboration with EGAB.
