Crime rampant in the Negev, police understaffed, governance broken down — comptroller

Englman also finds protection rackets rampant, lawlessness on the roads; tells Netanyahu he needs to step in; Ben Gvir, the police minister, calls report ‘twisted’

A report published Tuesday by State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman warned that effective governance has broken down in the Negev, especially in Bedouin towns, as police stations lack the necessary manpower to fight crime.

The document riled National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who oversees police and has made the restoration of law and order to the southern desert region a major talking point.

“It’s on the prime minister to address the issue of the lack of governance in the Negev, a strategic issue with weighty implications for the State of Israel,” wrote Englman in the report, noting that the situation has only worsened since the agency’s last report on the topic five years prior.

The report revealed that as of 2024, police stations in the Negev were consistently understaffed — short a total of 205 officers — amid law enforcement’s unsuccessful efforts nationwide to enlist new recruits in recent years.

The lack of manpower in the south has led to an uptick in crime, especially when it comes to the collection of “protection” fees, a form of extortion in which criminals blackmail businesses into paying them money under the pretense of security services.

The rampant extortion “has created a situation in which contractors are afraid to apply for tenders and building projects have become more expensive by hundreds of thousands of shekels,” the report said.

From 2020 to 2024, police launched 1,743 investigations into the collection of protection fees, but only 319 were transferred to the State Attorney’s Office for an indictment to be filed. Another 94 cases are in the process of being closed, according to the document.

On top of protection, the region is also suffering from persistent lawlessness on the roads. According to the report, calls made to police regarding road offenses in the south comprised 91 percent of all complaints about road safety issues.

The report further added that among Bedouin in the Negev, more than 7,000 men and 16,000 women are part of polygamous family frameworks. Despite the fact that the arrangement is illegal under Israeli law, only three indictments were filed for the offense from 2022 to 2024.

Responding to the report, Ben Gvir defended his record in the south, calling the document “twisted and distorted.”

“It is already clear: This is a twisted and distorted report that presents falsified and distorted data regarding the National Security Ministry’s activities in the Negev,” Ben Gvir’s office said in a statement, accusing Englman of ignoring the data his ministry provided to him.

In a bid to counter Englman’s data, Ben Gvir touted the 195 percent increase in the number of legal firearms held by citizens in the Negev; increasing the number of police officers on the ground by 13%; raising the number of volunteer security teams from two to 74; and increasing the demolition of illegal structures by 73%, thus “restoring governance and sovereignty.”

Under Ben Gvir, there has also been “a 317% surge in enforcement and the filing of indictments against ‘protection’ money,” his office claimed.

On the other side of the aisle, the Regional Council for Unrecognized Villages, which advocates for the rights of Bedouin citizens in the Negev, also voiced its displeasure with the report, saying Englman made a “serious interpretive error.”

The organization claimed in a statement that the government’s “discriminatory” policy toward Bedouin citizens has led to both an increase in crime and deep alienation from the state.

“If the State of Israel changes its policy and gives the residents of the villages and towns the same conditions that Jews in Israel receive — governance in its positive sense of services and equal opportunity — most of the need for enforcement will become unnecessary on its own,” the group asserted.

Opposition lawmakers, for their part, accused the government of “losing control of the Negev” in the wake of the report’s publication.

“Under Netanyahu-Ben Gvir-Deri, the Negev has become Palestine,” declared former prime minister Naftali Bennett, attacking Ben Gvir alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Shas party leader Aryeh Deri.

“Nearly all contractors in the Negev are subject to protection rackets; there is gunfire into air force bases. There is complete anarchy; there is no law in the entire State of Israel. The only solution is to replace this government already, and bring in a good, new government headed by me that will restore law and order to the State of Israel,” added Bennett, who is set to run against Netanyahu in the coming elections.

The Democrats party chairman Yair Golan declared that Ben Gvir is a “danger to Israel’s security.”

“While Ben Gvir is busy with public relations and publicity stunts, crime is rampant, personal security has collapsed, and the Negev has been completely abandoned. Of all the bombastic ‘governance’ promises made before the elections, nothing remains but zero actions and neglect that cries out to the heavens,” wrote the left-wing lawmaker.