Sawt Falasteen - Facing rockets, Arabs in northern Israel fume over lack of shelters

"The state is obliged to build public shelters so that the entire population has access to safe havens," Mazen Ghanayem, mayor of the town of Sakhnin, told AFP.

"Yet our town doesn't have a single public shelter worthy of the name."

Located just 20 kilometres from the border with Lebanon, the town's 36,000 residents have grown all too used to the rockets fired by Hezbollah.

Since the militant group joined the Middle East war on the side of its backer Tehran, after Israel and the United States launched attacks on Iran, Sakhnin has lived with the rhythm of air raid sirens.

"Sometimes rocket fragments fall on houses," Ghanayem said.

Perched on a hillside, the town's Arab identity, both Muslim and Christian, is clear to see. The domes of mosques jut into the air alongside church spires.

Its football club, which plays in the Israeli premier league, is a source of pride. So too is an uprising by Israel's Arab minority which, in 1976, forced the state to back down in its attempt to confiscate local land.

- 'Rather get hit' -

When the sirens blare, "residents first take shelter in their homes, as best they can if the house is old or in a secure room if the building is new," explained Kasim Abu Raya, a municipal official.

For those caught out in the open, there are no underground car parks to dash to in this modest town.

Abu Raya showed a video on his mobile phone of his wife and daughter when they were out in the road during an alert.

Frightened and not knowing where to go, they hastily took cover under the steps of a villa whose owners had themselves left everything on the table and hurried off.

To provide more locations to hide, the mayor says that around a dozen schools have been ordered to constantly keep their doors open.

The town also has around a dozen emergency shelters, concrete rectangular boxes measuring three by six metres, close to certain public places.

Resembling something between a reinforced bus stop and a public toilet, some of these mini-bunkers appear to be in an unappealing condition inside.

The shelter in the town hall car park has excrement smeared on the floor and reeks of urine. In others AFP found rubbish piled up at the entrance.

"I'd rather get hit than take shelter in there," joked mayor Ghanayem, not dwelling on who was responsible for their upkeep.

Nevertheless, in emergencies, people do still use them.

In the neighbouring town of Majd el-Kroum, AFP saw around a dozen people abandon their cars and cram like sardines into a shelter during a missile salvo.

- 'Immoral' situation -

"These mini-bunkers can accommodate a handful of people for a few minutes," mayor Ghanayem said.

"But they look more like a trap. This is clearly not a solution for ensuring the safety of my fellow citizens."

The problem with the lack of shelters was known about well before the most recent war with Iran.

According to a 2025 report by the State Comptroller, 33 percent of Israelis have no protected space or compliant shelter.

This figure rises to 50 percent for non-Jewish Israelis, and reaches 70 percent in Arab localities in the north.

In June 2025, during the previous war with Iran, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel expressed concern over the "not only immoral but also unconstitutional" situation.

"While the state allocates significant resources to protecting Jewish communities, including illegal settlements and outposts in the West Bank, it refrains from acting in the same manner in Arab communities," the association said.

That certainly rings true with the mayor of Sakhnin.

"When you look at the Jewish community, in every town, every village, every kibbutz, there are public shelters everywhere," said Ghanayem.

"Not here, and certainly not in Sakhnin."

Z.AlNajjar--SF-PST