Shin Bet building program to help police tackle rampant Arab crime wave — reports

Funding said expected around NIS 1-1.3 billion; as murder rates rise, new agency chief Zini reportedly more open to using Shin Bet to fight crime than his predecessor

The Shin Bet is set to take on the fight against killings in Israel’s Arab community, which have skyrocketed in recent years amid a proliferation of guns, a rise in organized crime, and a failure of enforcement by police, according to Friday reports.

Channels 12 and 13 both reported Friday night that Shin Bet chief David Zini has agreed to help the overwhelmed police tackle the scourge of Arab murders, subject to government funding.

According to the reports, the surge in funding is expected to stand at around NIS 1-1.3 billion ($330-400 million).

Former Shin Bet head Ronen Bar had resisted the government’s pressure to involve the internal security agency in the fight against deadly Arab crime, warning that its interference in investigations of citizens in criminal matters could be a slippery slope. The Shin Bet is largely focused on matters of national security, not internal criminal affairs.

Zini’s position has been more willing, according to the two outlets.

Channel 13 reported that a separate division will be formed within the Shin Bet, which will have more intrusive tools than those available to police, including the installation of spyware, wiretapping, and other more aggressive surveillance methods.

“We have not yet formulated what the department will look like or how the program’s funding will be used,” a Shin Bet source told the outlet.

The new program is “still in the middle of work,” the source added.

According to the Abraham Initiatives watchdog, police have solved just 12 percent of homicides in Arab communities this year. The group’s most recent data says that this year’s toll of homicide victims is 15% higher than that of 2025 during the same period.

Last year was the deadliest on record for Arab society in Israel, as the community mourned 252 people slain in violent criminal circumstances. The vast majority of Arab sector homicides went unsolved in 2025 as well, with police managing to crack just 10% of cases, the monitor said. The homicide rate in Arab society doubled in 2023 and continued to rise in the years following, save for a short dip in 2024, before reaching a new peak in 2025.

The massive uptick, which coincided with the start of Itamar Ben Gvir’s term as national security minister, has alarmed Arab community leaders, many of whom attribute the sharp rise to ineffectiveness — if not outright negligence — of law enforcement.

Police, for their part, have claimed that they are doing all they can to combat violent crime. Senior officers, including police chief Danny Levy, have placed blame on state prosecutors and the court system and, in other instances, have said that officers lack the technological means to collect evidence efficiently.