Palestinian citizens of Israel have been assaulted and harassed in the wake of Hamas attacks, activist says

Jafar Farah, an activist who advocates for Israel's Palestinian citizens, told Insider: "We are not the enemy."

• An activist said Israel's Palestinian citizens have been assaulted and harassed since the Hamas attack.
• The Mossawa Center, which advocates for Palestinians in Israel, says it's received a growing number of reports in recent days.
• "We are not the enemy," Jafar Farah, the director of the Mossawa Center, told Insider. 

Palestinian citizens of Israel have faced assaults, harassment, and discrimination since Saturday's terrorist attacks by Hamas, a local activist told Insider.

Jafar Farah, the director of the Mossawa Center, which advocates for Palestinians in Israel, said in an interview on Thursday that the nonprofit has received a growing number of reports citing physical attacks, hate speech, workplace discrimination, and bias against Palestinians in Israel since Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, launched its surprise assault. 

"On a daily basis, we get messages from groups and people in different places that there is incitement against them, that there is hate speech against them," Farah said.

Farah said that in one instance earlier this week, Israeli police in the northern Israeli city of Haifa attacked a young Palestinian man with special needs for "no reason." "Almost every day, we get cases of physical attacks," Farah said. 

In another instance, Farah said, a Palestinian physician at an Israeli hospital reported that he had been accused of supporting "terror" by a colleague.

The Mossawa Center has also received multiple reports of Palestinian students being "harassed in universities" and Palestinian workers being fired from their jobs after unfounded allegations that they support Hamas. 

According to a statement put out by the Mossawa Center, Palestinian communities have been coordinating emergency help "among themselves" out of fear that Israel's national emergency medical response service "will not enter Arab towns as happened in previous military escalations."

'We are not the enemy' 

"Everybody is terrified, and they feel that we are living under a military regime these days," Farah told Insider. "We are not the enemy."

Farah noted that Palestinians of Israel — who make up about 20% of the Israeli population — have long faced discrimination in the Jewish state but said the discrimination has been highly intensified amid the Israel-Hamas war. 

"There is always a level of discrimination and racism against Palestinian citizens of Israel," Farah said. "This is not something new, but when there is a regional conflict, nobody takes into consideration that we are also victims of this regional conflict, and we become also the target." 

Palestinian journalist Hanin Majadli noted in a Friday column for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: "If being a Palestinian Israeli is a complex experience in normal times, it is almost impossible in these times."

"Because since the start of the war, I and 2 million more Arab citizens are seen as guilty," Majadli wrote. "Because we are quiet, or scared, or because we dared to compare or because — and this is the worst — we talked about context and the occupation."

Palestinians in Israel are grappling with 'double realities' 

The attacks by Hamas militants have left more than 1,300 dead in Israel. And almost 100 more were taken hostage, according to Israeli officials. About 15 Arab citizens in Israel were also killed in the attacks, according to the Mossawa Center.

Many of Israel's Palestinian citizens are now grappling with "double realities" as Israel continues its relentless counterattack on Gaza, the Palestinian territory controlled by Hamas, Farah said.  

"Double realities in that you can be killed in this confrontation, but at the same time, you can see your relatives, your people dying in Gaza, and you can't say anything. You are prevented from expressing your feelings even," Farah said.

Mourning for those in Gaza, he said, could wrongly be viewed as support of Hamas. 

"There is no Hamas supporters inside the Palestinian community of Israel," Farah said. "There is a people that want to treat all of us as Hamas."

More than 1,500 people, including 500 children, have been killed in Gaza since the start of Israel's retaliatory air strikes, which have toppled residential buildings, universities, hospitals, and mosques, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

"Our position, at the end of the day, is this bloodshed should be ended," Farah said.

The Mossawa Center said in a statement that it's calling for an "immediate cease-fire and peaceful reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis, and for excluding civilians from violence in any military escalation."