Palestinians in Israel’s north ‘abandoned’ by authorities as rocket deaths soar
The scene where a missile fired by Hezbollah in Lebanon landed and caused damage in the Palestinian town of Majd Al-Krum, northern Israel, 16 October 2024
Suha Arraf reports in +972 on 22 November 2024:
On Monday, November 18, a missile launched by Hezbollah in Lebanon landed in the Palestinian city of Shefa-Amr in northern Israel. Safa Awad, a 50-year-old schoolteacher and mother of four, had taken shelter in her reinforced safe room after rocket sirens sounded in the community. But the missile evaded Israel’s Iron Dome defense system and landed directly on Awad’s house, killing her.
Awad joined a growing list of at least 48 civilians killed in northern Israel by Hezbollah rockets, or falling shrapnel caused by their interception, since the war began in October 2023. Yet those casualties are not being borne equally: despite comprising only one-fifth of the state’s population, Palestinians represent more than 58 percent of the victims, according to figures published this week by the NGO Sikkuy-Aufoq.
The casualty rate in northern Israel has increased sharply since the Israeli military launched its ground invasion into southern Lebanon on Oct. 1 of this year, with 19 killed in that period alone. Six of these casualties were Palestinians, alongside eight Israeli Jews and five foreign workers.
Awad’s death in Shefa-Amr followed those of two other Palestinians in the same city on Oct. 31: a mother and son killed by shrapnel while harvesting olives on their land. A week earlier, two young men were killed and more than two dozen others wounded by a Hezbollah missile and shrapnel from Iron Dome interceptions in the town of Majd Al-Krum. And on Oct. 29, one man was killed when a rocket landed in the town of Tarshiha.