Israel's crime epidemic and domestic issues demand attention, even during wartime - editorial

The Israel-Hamas War is piling new heights and breaking new records for all the wrong reasons. But the thing about wars is that they are a lot easier to begin than to end, and until they do end, life back home continues.

It is easy to get swept up in the narrative of a great war, in the stories, the tragedies, and the miracles. But, when we look back on this time, we will remember not just the death and destruction, but also how prices hiked so high that our ability to pay our bills on time became much harder, and how these years were some of the worst recorded yet in the realm of crime and violence.

Just on Sunday, 14-year-old Ori Portel was shot dead in Rishon Lezion. He was killed accidentally by his friend, himself 13 years old, who was playing with a gun at a “bottle shooting range.”

This follows a severely bloody weekend. Just on Sunday night, three people were murdered.

Kawtar Zitaoui, 60, was stabbed to death in her home in Umm el-Fahm. Police suspect her son is at fault and that he also harmed his pregnant wife. In Daburiya near Nazareth, Yakub Ikhtilat, 27, was shot dead, while Daniel Aslan, a 22-year-old released soldier, was killed after being falsely identified.

Last Sunday, in a suspected murder-suicide, a mother and her 13-year-old son were burned to death in a Modi’in apartment.

Last Monday, Yelena Gealovsky, 51, was murdered in Bat Yam by her husband, Yvegney Gealovsky, who jumped to his death after barricading himself there for nine hours.

That evening, Tamer Abu Kishk and Tayeb Masri were killed in a car bomb explosion in Jaljulya. A 10-year-old boy who was riding his bike nearby was injured as well.

Last Tuesday, Nur Musa, 18, who worked as a delivery boy, was shot dead.

On Thursday, Sarah Richardson, 73, was found dead in Ma’aleh Levona. Her son later admitted to suffocating her.

That same day, Issa Farij, 38, was shot dead in Kafr Kassem after he was released from detention for a suspected killing.

On Saturday, Daniella Yaakobovich, 67, from Nahariya, was fatally stabbed, per police suspicions, by her son in his 30s, who suffers from mental health issues.

This heartbreakingly long list should have elicited comments and site visits by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, but his voice has been unheard in this sphere. Instead, he showed up at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on Sunday to show support to a police officer who was attacked several years ago.

Ben-Gvir has said that since he took office, his team has taken action to combat the rising crime rates, specifically the phenomenon of “protection” money. But that is not nearly enough.

Time doesn't freeze, even if we are at war

The truth about war is that it doesn’t replace the mundane obligations from before; it only serves to weigh them down more and make them sharper, and more relevant. Public safety has become more of a concern since the war began, not less. The police are understaffed and their leaders and mentors are busy with photo ops, bumping shoulders, and gaining favors.

There are many people in the police force who are good and honest and do their job. But that is not the image reflected from the top and from the statistics, and at the end of the day, that is what people see.

Ben-Gvir’s rushed comments regard matters unrelated to the ministry he is leading, which certainly has its hands full; meanwhile Israel’s internal security is bleeding out.

There are those that would say, “What can you expect? This is Ben-Gvir.” But this is a man that, personality and past aside, has a job to do. It is on that metric that we judge him, and it is on that metric that he is, so far, failing.

As rumors of elections circulate, let this serve as a cry and a wake-up call to our elected officials of what they were elected to do and where their failures lie, following and unrelated to the October 7 massacre.