Exposed from above, silenced from within: Palestinians in wartime Israel
A Palestinian man inspects the damage after a missile fired from Iran struck the Palestinian town of Zarzir, northern Israel, 13 March 2026
Samah Watad and Baker Zoubi write in +972 on 19 March 2026:
With the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran showing no signs of slowing down, the sound of sirens has become a constant for Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel alike. But while Jewish Israelis run to safe rooms or nearby shelters in the moments between hearing an alarm and the impact of missiles or falling interception fragments, many Palestinian citizens are left asking: Where do we go?
Shelters and protected spaces have become a central component of Israel’s civil defense system, especially since October 7 and the subsequent escalations with Iran, which have extended the threat of missile fire to nearly every part of the country. However, in Arab communities — and even in Arab neighborhoods within binational cities — significant gaps remain between the protections provided to Jewish and Palestinian citizens.
A new study by two local organizations, Sikkuy–Aufoq and Injaz, reflects the scale of the disparity: Out of 11,775 public shelters nationwide, only 37 are located in Arab localities — roughly 0.3 percent — and eight of those are unusable. A report published earlier this year by Israel’s State Comptroller found similarly vast gaps.
This means that hundreds of thousands of Arab citizens (who comprise around 20 percent of Israel’s population) live in communities without public shelters and instead are forced to take cover in interior rooms, hallways, or stairwells — spaces that offer little protection from direct hits or even falling shrapnel.
This vulnerability is not only a wartime failure, but the result of decades of discriminatory planning, chronic underinvestment, and policy decisions that have left Arab towns largely outside the state’s protection infrastructure.