For Abed Abou Shhadeh, the questions of who he is and where he’s from have varied answers.
He tells SBS News he’s a Palestinian citizen of Israel. But the Israeli government describes this community, which makes up around a fifth of Israel’s population, as Arab Israelis.
The 34-year-old writer, podcaster, political activist and former city councillor says he lives in Tel Aviv-Jaffa and adds it’s offensive to Palestinians to drop the second part and just refer to his birthplace as Tel Aviv. Jaffa is an ancient port city in the south of modern-day Tel Aviv, which was incorporated into the city in the 1940s.
“There is a struggle over a lot of terminology here. Both Israelis and Palestinians, we have this distinct distinction between Jaffa and Tel Aviv city — it’s two different worlds,” he says.
Within Israeli society these two worlds are clearly divided: there are separate Arab neighbourhoods, a separate Arab economy and separate Arab political parties.
As the first anniversary of the start of approaches, Palestinians in Israel are worried about their safety. Abed says they have been deeply affected by Israel’s over the past 12 months.
Almost every person who lives in Jaffa has relatives in Gaza. It’s our family.
Abed Abou Shhadeh
“There’s so much pressure and at some point it just depresses you, especially when you see so many kids being killed and bombed and sick and starving and so on.”
‘Legitimately afraid’
Abed’s family has been living in Jaffa since before Israel’s creation in 1948.
The coastal city of Jaffa is understood to be more than 4,000 years old and is now part of Tel Aviv. Source: Getty / kolderal/Getty Images
“I come from a very proud family who has very deep roots: My grandfather lived through the Palestinian Nakba and my father lived through very hard times in Jaffa,” Abed says.
“There is this sense of betrayal when you think of leaving.”
Nakba, which means catastrophe in Arabic, is the to describe the 1948 expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians — a majority of the pre-war population — who fled or were driven from their homes under threat of violence amid the establishment of Israel.
The Israeli government has banned the use of the term in school textbooks and, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, has systematically hidden documents referencing massacres committed during this period.
Palestinians who remained in Israel after 1948 were placed under military rule until the end of 1966. In 1967, the Six-Day War took place and Israel gained control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously said Israel grants all citizens equal rights, though many Palestinians, who are a mix of Christian, Muslim and Druze, say they face structural discrimination within the predominantly Jewish country.
In 2021 Israel’s Supreme Court said “equal rights are granted to all citizens of the state, including minority groups”, as it dismissed an appeal against the , which critics say downgraded the status of Palestinians.
Abed has thought about leaving his home a lot in the last 12 months.
, Abed worries his community’s survival is at threat.
He says some Palestinian women who wear headscarves as part of their faith have stopped taking public transport because they feel it’s too dangerous.
I see what’s happening in Israeli society and I don’t underestimate there are enough people who are willing on the Israeli side to do the same atrocities that are happening in Gaza to us.
Abed Abou Shhadeh
Israel’s increase in gun ownership, following the government’s fast-tracking of permits in the wake of October 7, has made Abed question whether he can keep his young daughter safe.
Gun ownership among Israelis surged in the wake of October 7. Source: Getty / Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
In March, Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir celebrated the approval of 100,000 gun licences since early December.
“You would run or walk on Tel Aviv Beach and then you’d see a couple holding hands — both of them having M-16 assault rifles on their back. It’s just everywhere,” Abed says.
“Then you add to the mix accidents [that] could happen, like a random bullet, and then you realise it’s a traumatised society where people could do anything and you are legitimately afraid.”
According to a report by Abraham Initiatives, an Israel-based organisation that tracks crime statistics, 244 members of the Arab community were murdered in 2023, which is more than double the number killed the previous year.
Abed says Palestinians feel like “racist police” aren’t protecting them, which contributes even further to “feeling constantly unsafe”.
Limited choice for Palestinians
The Palestinian community in Tel Aviv-Jaffa is estimated to be around 20,000 people, representing 0.4 per cent of the city’s total population of nearly five million.
Other areas like Haifa and Galilee have larger Palestinian populations, and in Nazareth almost all of the 80,000 people living there are Arab.
In Jerusalem, where people are sometimes counted on both Israeli and West Bank censuses and population estimates vary, the picture is more complex.
Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital and includes all of the city’s residents in its censuses, though this territorial claim is not recognised by the United Nations and is disputed by Palestinians, who view East Jerusalem as the future capital of their independent state.
Many Palestinians living in Jerusalem do not have Israeli citizenship and instead have permanent residency, which means they can be subject to restrictions on their movement during times of unrest or even a loss of their residency status.
Adalah, an organisation advocating for Arab minority rights in Israel, told Agence France Presse that community members who expressed sympathy for Gazan civilians have been unfairly punished.
In October 2023, Israel’s police chief Kobi Shabtai banned Palestinian protests and said in an Israeli police social media video he would personally participate in the transfer of Palestinians who “identify with Gaza” to the Gaza Strip.
Between 7 October and 27 March, Israeli police arrested 401 people, the majority of whom were Arabs, for speech-related offences it says were tantamount to “incitement to terrorism”, Adalah figures show.
The crackdown on freedom of speech has created a situation in which Palestinian citizens… can neither protest nor freely voice their opinions.
Adalah Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel
Abed says the crackdown on protesting is one example of how the Israeli state operates to “marginalise Palestinian people”.
“Politics in the time of war doesn’t really have a meaning – you can’t really organise, you can’t demonstrate. And if you demonstrate, you understand that you put yourself in a very dangerous position, and then you understand that our political representation is hollow and our citizenship is hollow”.
Inequality in Israel
Data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics shows many Arabs have lower levels of education, are more likely to work in construction, manufacturing and agriculture, and earn less money than Jewish Israelis.
In 2019 the median monthly income for Jewish households was $US4,652 ($6,735) and $3,048 ($4,413) for Arab households — a difference of $US1,604 ($2,322).
The main earner in Jewish households completed an average 14.4 years of schooling, compared to an average of 11.7 years for Arab households.
Monday will mark one year since Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing around 1,200 people and , according to Israeli tallies.
It also marks one year since , killing more than 41,600 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, and plunging the enclave into a humanitarian crisis.
Israel’s economy has weakened significantly leading to a rise in homelessness, unemployment and crime, making life even more stressful for Abed and his family.
But they plan to stay in Jaffa and “stay resilient”.
“I see how Arabs and brown people in general are treated in the West. We go through racism and being in dangerous positions here, but at least it’s our home,” he says.
“At least we are indigenous to this land. It’s better than going through (extended suffering) in a place where you are literally foreign.”
