PA libel: Israeli Arabs killed in Iranian airstrike were not given bomb shelters by Israel
The PA took their tragic deaths as an opportunity to spread libels against Israel, claiming that the women did not have a bomb shelter in their home and that Israel does not build shelters for Israeli Arabs, as a policy. In fact, there was a bomb shelter in the women’s home, and alarm sirens had sounded, but for some unknown reason, they did not enter the available shelter and were not protected:
Official PA TV host: “Regarding our people within the Green Line (i.e., Palestinian term for Israeli-Arabs) who are not being provided with security in the Arab cities, can you describe the situation there for us?”High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel Secretary Mansour Dahamsheh: “Unfortunately, most of the buildings in the [Israeli] Arab cities do not have shelter rooms or bomb shelters. In Jewish cities that lack shelters, they build or bring in shelters… The Arab civilians… are not given protection, and that’s what happened yesterday in Tamra. (PMW note: They had a shelter but did not enter it.)”
[Official PA TV, June 15, 2025]
The PA kept repeating this libel for days:
and over the settlements, Palestinian cities and villages within the 1948 territories (i.e., Israel) remain without any protection and lack sufficient shelters. This fact leads to losses in every war that Israel wages, whether from the direct fall of missiles or from the shrapnel of the interception missiles.”[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 16, 2025]
The PA also claimed that Arabs cannot enter “shelters in the Jewish areas” and stated that “racist” Israel deliberately abandons Israeli Arab towns to Iranian missiles:
Official PA TV reporter: “In Tamra, which is an Arab city within the Green Line (i.e., Palestinian term for Israel), there are no safe spaces and no shelters (Note: the 4 Israeli Arab women killed in Tamra had a shelter but did not enter it)… In the Arab areas in the [Palestinian] Interior (i.e., PA term for Israel), in the Arab cities and villages, there are no shelters. They are not prepared for missiles of this kind… when we talk about Arab areas, they have no shelters at all, and it is impossible for the civilians to enter shelters in the Jewish areas…
Official PA TV Host: “This is within the framework of the policy of racist discrimination that is being completely adopted by the occupation (i.e., Israeli) government.”[Official PA TV News, June 14, 2025]
However, a video showing Israeli Jewish and Arab citizens together in a shelter during an Iranian missile attack disproves this PA lie:
Israeli Arab man: “Unity and brotherhood. Jews and Arabs in the same shelter. Everyone’s happy, everyone’s protected God willing, andneveryone’s in one piece. May you all be healthy, amen, amen, amen!”[Omar Asadi Telegram, June 16, 2025]
Regarding Israeli policy, following the missile attacks on Israel in the Gulf War in 1992, all new Israeli residential units must have immediate access to shelters. No building can receive a building permit across Israel, including the Arab towns, if it does not include a shelter – a “residential protected space.”
Many older buildings in Israel – in Jewish as well as Arab neighborhoods – unfortunately, still do not have immediate access to shelters, which has resulted in some of the tragic deaths in this war.
But these facts do not concern the Palestinian Authority, which used the tragic deaths of four Israeli Arab women, who had access to a shelter, to libel Israel.
