Where are the Bomb Shelters to Protect 2.1 Million Palestinians living in Israel? Article in Haaretz newspaper. With a reflection
A daily newspaper in Israel.
Article by Nagham Zbeedat in the 16.06.2025 issue.
The Israeli government claims to defend all its citizens, yet most Arab towns still lack bomb shelters. Protests, however, are muted – Palestinians in Israel live between unbearable realities: the danger at home and the devastation in Gaza
A missile was launched from Iran overnight into Sunday in the northern Arab town of Tamra, killing four women from the same family. The victims were identified as Manar Khatib, 45, and her two daughters – Shada, 20, and Hala, 13, – as well as their relative, 41-year-old Manal Khatib.
Their deaths weren't just a tragic fluke. It's a pattern, backed by policy. Tamra, like the vast majority of Arab towns within Israel, has no functional public shelters. It wasn't the first time infrastructure failed to protect Palestinian citizens in Israel, and it won't be the last.
Last July, 12 children and teens were killed when a rocket hit a soccer field in Majdal Shams. In the Galilee town of Majdal Krum, a young man and woman died in October due to the same reason: no shelters. These aren't isolated incidents. They are a blueprint of government neglect.
The Israel Democracy Institute published new data yesterday in Hebrew that lays it out in black and white. (The report is not yet available in English, but the same researcher explained the disparity in English last year). Tamra, a city of 37,000 people, has zero public shelters.
Just 5.5 kilometers (3.4 miles) down the road, the Jewish town of Mitzpeh Aviv – populated by only 1,100 residents – has 13 fortified spaces to protect from missile barrages. Farther north in the Galilee region – where over 53,000 people live across towns like Nahf, Deir al-Asad and Majdal Krum – there are just two public shelters. Meanwhile, nearby Karmiel, a Jewish city, enjoys 126.
The Israeli government continues to claim that it's defending "all its citizens." But Arab towns are still last in line for basic services extended to other citizens, if they're in line at all. We've lived through 16 years of Hezbollah missiles, multiple Gaza wars, and now, the Iranian retaliation, and somehow the state has yet to install real shelters in most of our communities.
And yet, you won't hear loud protests. Even after the deaths in Tamra, there were no fiery op-eds, no viral hashtags nor mass mobilization. In part, that's because we – Palestinian citizens – live in the overlap of two unbearable realities: the danger we face here, and the devastation we witness in Gaza.
For many Palestinian citizens in Israel, anger has been displaced by a quieter, heavier feeling: shame. We are watching Gaza burn. Our communities mourn both here and there. It's hard to demand protection from a state that is actively annihilating your people on the other side of the border. So we whisper our grief, and bury our dead in silence.
In private group chats, the fear is palpable. People trade updates about Iranian airstrikes, complain about the absence of shelters and describe Iron Dome interceptions exploding directly above Arab towns as if they were open and uninhabited terrain.
But even in those anxious moments, there's a second, quieter voice that surfaces: "If this is what we've felt for just a few days, how are people in Gaza surviving this – without food, without sirens, without any shelters, for over a year and a half?"
As we crouch in stairwells or huddle in windowless rooms, trying to shield ourselves from Iranian missiles, our thoughts are always with those in Gaza that are without a roof, without the embrace of family, without even the illusion of safety. That tension, between our legitimate fear and their unimaginable suffering, makes outrage feel almost selfish. So instead, we suppress it.
A quick scroll through my feed: an Israeli family filming themselves dancing and cheering as the Iranian missiles fell in Tamra, shouting "may your village burn." The next video shows young Palestinian children lying lifeless after trying to grab flour from an aid distribution point in Gaza.
Then a clip from Lebanon of a jazz musician playing calmly as onlookers watch the missiles streak across our shared sky. It's a looping reel of racism, devastation and surreal detachment – an emotional free fall that repeats itself every day.
Yet, our silence will continue to be read as apathy. Our grief is still met with suspicion. As the government points fingers at Iran, the Houthis and Hezbollah, we're left wondering: Who's pointing a finger back at the government for never protecting us in the first place?
A Reflection on Identification with the Nation State. Christopher Titmuss
People remain vulnerable to the onslaught of conditioning around identity. The perpetual repetition of a word (national, cultural, religious) gradually gets absorbed into the recesses of the mind until it becomes a fixed and narrow identity. We form a view of who I am, who we are and who others are from this identity.
For the identity to intensify, it requires three unhealthy mind states to become associated with the identity - desire, fear and blame. These three patterns add pressure on our identity with a particular country, culture, religion or combination. The self of the individual and collective finds itself unable to distinguish the name of their land from the associated mental health issues. We fear others and blame others for the current situation.
This is a blind spot of blind spots embedded into identity.
We are not born thinking we have an identity, such as a nationality. It is not impregnated into us at conception or during a pregnancy. There is no evolutionary certainty of personal identity, such as our ears are always on the side of our head. Social environment of an individual(s) and influential institutions impose our nationality upon us. Our identity comes from the will of others, utterly unaware of the consequences of promoting an intensity of such belief.
Our identity then becomes a closed fist used to fight others rather than an open hand as a recognition of diversity.
We do not even have to be born into a certain nation to adopt an identity. The desire can arise to identify with a nation through experiences, perceptions or religious/spiritual and cultural desires. Positive Infatuation with any country sews the seeds for violence upon citizens in other countries or within the same country.
For example: A deep identification with being an Israeli Jew living in a Jewish state contributes to become fearful of non-Jews and views them in the mind’s eyes with suspicion and hostility. ‘The Arabs’ becomes a form of language from the dominating group functioning to minimise recognition of ‘Palestinians.’
In annual visits to Israel between 1992 and 2019, I rarely heard an Israeli, even a thoughtful, liberal-minded citizens, use the word Palestine or refer to Palestinians within Israel. So it is not surprising that Palestinians in Israel have little opportunity to go to bomb shelters, even though 21% of the Israeli population share a Palestinian/Israeli history.
Palestinians in Israel have the vote but do not receive the same social, educational, health and housing benefits as Israeli Jews. Being second class citizens, Palestinians in Israel form the largest group of the poor in the country. The lack of bomb shelters confirms other expressions of discrimination successive Israeli governments sanction through laws and intentional neglect.
Prejudice and war reveal undermining, rejection, violence and dehumanising of other people. That’s not the underlying reality. ‘Us’ shows no identifiable difference from them. Us and them confirm similar evolutionary developments of mind and body, including desires, fear and blame. This conditioning arises in the mind for us AND them.
Apartheid, racism, ethnic cleansing, war and genocide reveal abuse and violations of life upon names, such as Israelis, Palestinians, Arabs, citizens of Gaza, Iranians and more.
Due to the degree of identification, the rage against the names of others lead to the most inhumane behaviour of people towards people.
Jewish citizens of Israel need to reflect on this in the security of their bomb shelters while their fellow Palestinian citizens experience terror as missiles fly in from neighbouring countries.
Israelis and Arabs also need to reflect on the pathology of the leaders of their respective countries on citizens in their homeland and elsewhere. Two wrongs do not make a right.
Let us be among the few who speak up and state loud and clear,
“NOT IN MY NAME.”
Thank you for this! You are supplying necessary information in this horrific situation.
Ros Langdon.