Hundreds of Israeli cops raid Bedouin village; locals lay flares and stun grenades fired

Israel Police forces in the village of Tarabin al-Sana in southern Israel on 29 December 2025

Eden Solomon reports in Haaretz on 29 December 2025:

Hundreds of Israel Police officers raided a Bedouin village near the southern city of Be’er Sheva on Monday, firing flares, breaking windows in homes, and throwing stun grenades inside, residents said.

Police said the operation in the village of Tarabin al-Sana was part of “comprehensive activity to strengthen governance,” and was carried out in response to “acts of revenge by criminals over the weekend.”

The Israeli military said it had raised the level of alert on its bases in the south of Israel due to “operational considerations.”

Police said 16 people were arrested, and 19 were barred from southern Israel. Police also said officers found military weapons and combat equipment during the raid. According to police, residents disrupted police activity, who used protest dispersal means against them.

Police also searched “criminal compounds” and fenced off the entire village with concrete blocks to ensure the security of “normal” residents of the south.

Clashes in the village began on Friday, when police patrol cars entered the village in search of a stolen horse, quickly flooding the streets with clouds of pepper spray and tear gas.

On Saturday, masked assailants broke into two communities in southern Israel and vandalized vehicles. Dozens of police officers raided Tarabin al-Sana in response and arrested six suspects. Police suspect the break-ins were carried out in retaliation for the police’s activity on Friday.

On Sunday, police fired tear gas into a local mosque during evening prayers and fired rubber-coated bullets.

Fathi Tarabin, a resident of Tarabin al-Sana and local business owner, told Haaretz that residents should not be punished for their reaction to what he called “incitement” against the village.

“You cannot punish a person for their reaction,” he said, noting that “people threw stones and set up roadblocks after they were hit with tear gas – it all started with the police.” Tarabin added that residents “have no problem with the state or its citizens, only with Ben Gvir. I see racism here.”

Tarabin said residents want to live in security and condemned what he described as the collective punishment of the village in response to the attacks by masked assailants on Saturday. “We condemn it in the strongest terms,” he said, in reference to the attacks. “Even if it was someone from Tarabin, why blame everyone?”

Tarabin added that residents “feel abandoned within our own country” as they suffer from the police and violence in the Arab community. “The worst thing is the politicians who incite against Tarabin,” he said, “we want the state to deal with crime and education, but this is not the way.”

The interior of a home in Tarabin al-Sana showing damage following an Israel Police raid on Monday.
Yasser, a village resident, told Haaretz the raid felt like war. “They enter homes and arrest youths,” he said, “they arrested my brother, who’s 28, and I don’t know why. There’s a police helicopter here, horses, a water cannon. It feels like Tulkarm,” he said, referring to the West Bank city where Israeli forces have conducted a counter-terrorism operation. “I don’t know what they want.”

Speaking at a press conference at the Knesset, lawmaker and United Arab List chair Mansour Abbas said following the raid that “unlike [National Security] Minister [Itamar] Ben-Gvir, who interferes with the police’s work, we think the police should act in accordance with the law, and in a professional manner.”

Abbas said police “must respect the rights of citizens and provide them with security, while acting in the most appropriate way to eradicate crime and violence.”  “We must not treat Arab citizens as enemies or Arab communities as if they are beyond the country’s borders,” he said, adding that the government has failed to address the root problems in Arab society, particularly in the Negev.

“The results are clear – there is no governance, no sovereignty and no law and order, because Minister Ben-Gvir is interfering with and harming the work of the police and other areas the government is supposed to handle.”

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