Israelis cheer as Iranian missile strikes Palestinian town in country’s north
Palestinians, including Raja Khatib (L), mourn the deaths of four members of the Khatib family killed in an Iranian missile attack in Tamra, northern Israel, 17 June 2025
Lubna Masarwa reports in Middle East Eye on 15 June 2025:
A group of Israelis celebrated an Iranian missile strike on a predominantly Palestinian town in northern Israel, which killed four Palestinian citizens of Israel and injured dozens more.
In a video that has since gone viral on Israeli social media, the group can be heard cheering as a missile appears to fall on Tamra, a predominantly Christian and Muslim town some 25km from Haifa.
“On the village, on the village,” a man shouts as the missile slams into Tamra. He and the others in the group, including several Israeli women, then sang the anti-Arab song “May your village burn”, popularised by the Israeli pop singer Kobi Peretz. Others clapped and cheered as other missiles rained down.
Residents told Middle East Eye that four Christian women from the same family were killed in Saturday’s attack, including a mother and her two daughters, aged 13 and 20. The missile caused severe damage to their home, nearly collapsing the three- to four-story building.
Within hours of the attack, Yinon Magal, a presenter on Israel’s Channel 14, a right-wing network favoured by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, appeared to downplay the deaths, claiming that most residents of Tamra “are against Israel”.
Ayman Odeh, the head of the Hadash alliance, said the comments were unsurprising given the repeated anti-Palestinian rhetoric espoused by Netanyahu and members of his cabinet.