SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
This week, NPR is reporting from Israel to Gaza and beyond to look at the ways life has changed for those affected by the events of October 7 a year on. Palestinian citizens of Israel make up a fifth of the Israeli population. After the state of Israel was created in 1948, a minority of Palestinians who did not flee or get expelled from their homes were granted citizenship and placed under military rule for the first 20 years. Today, many live and work alongside Jewish Israelis. They speak fluent Arabic and Hebrew. Some were killed in the Hamas-led attacks on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza. But after October 7, they say they live in an atmosphere of fear. NPR's Hadeel Al-Shalchi takes us to Jaffa, the Arab-majority district of Tel Aviv.
HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, BYLINE: Walking through central Jaffa, around me are shops with both Arabic and Hebrew signs, many women wearing Hijab, and Palestinians and Jews share spaces in coffee shops, stores and restaurants. This shared and tense life was never easy for Palestinians before October 7, and now they say it's all been upended in the smallest ways.
Abu Yehya changes the wheel of a bicycle in his shop in Jaffa. He's always had a mix of Arab and Jewish customers and friends. But after October 7, he says he's viewed with suspicion by his Jewish neighbors.
ABU YEHYA: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "The way they look at you is different now," Abu Yehya says.
He says he's lost Jewish customers.
YEHYA: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "They walk in, see you're an Arab and walk out," Abu Yehya says.
Palestinians in Jaffa have deep ties to fellow Palestinians in Gaza. Abu Yehya says some of his relatives there have been killed in the war. Just a few miles away, families of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas have set up hostage square in central Tel Aviv, with tents and art installations and memorials to October 7 victims. But Abu Yehya hasn't held any memorials for his killed relatives. He says he doesn't want his Jewish neighbors to mistake his grief for support for Hamas.
YEHYA: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "I don't even dare to write the words, rest in peace, on Facebook to mourn my cousin," he says. Sami Abu Shehadeh is a prominent Jaffa politician who served in the Israeli Parliament.
SAMI ABU SHEHADEH: I was attacked physically and verbally few times on the streets. Here in Jaffa, a lot of the Muslim women that wear scarves were attacked on the public transportation. And part of them now are afraid to go to hospitals or to go to the doctor because they are attacked on the streets because they are not Jewish.
AL-SHALCHI: Many Palestinian citizens of Israel are prominent members of the community, and some helped treat the injured on October 7.
ABU SHEHADEH: On the same day, they were rescued by Arab Palestinians. Those who were injured, they were - dealt with Arab doctors in the hospital.
AL-SHALCHI: Yona Rosenbaum (ph) is a Jewish resident of the mixed city of Haifa. He says he understands the concerns of Palestinians in his city.
YONA ROSENBAUM: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "Most Arabs are afraid of being arrested and harmed. They don't express themselves freely," he says.
Ahmed Khelefe waves from his front door. We meet him at his doorstep. It's illegal for him to go any further. The 42-year-old human rights lawyer has been under house arrest for almost 10 months. On October 19, Khelefe was arrested during an anti-war demonstration in his town Umm al-Fahm. That's an Arab town in northern Israel. Khelefe was chanting slogans he says were in support of Palestinian victims of the war in Gaza.
AHMED KHELEFE: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: They were saying, "Gaza, don't sway. You are full of dignity and glory." Khelefe was charged for incitement of terrorism and identifying with a terrorist organization based on those slogans. He spent four months in jail where he says he was beaten, given very little to eat and where the cells were overcrowded and filthy.
KHELEFE: People were begging for their lives and crying. The atmosphere was full of fear that you can die any second.
AL-SHALCHI: Israeli police told NPR that it operates in accordance to the law and was unfamiliar with, quote, "the claims described."
KHELEFE: We are living in a political body that claims to be Democratical state, but it's a Jewish democracy that we have no place.
AL-SHALCHI: NPR spoke to many Palestinian citizens of Israel who were jailed for social media posts supporting an end to the war or who were harassed in public. They were all afraid to go on record, even anonymously. The Israeli Parliament's research division says that 84 indictments of incitement to terrorism were filed between 2018 and 2022, mainly against Arabs. That number has more than doubled since the outbreak of the war. Last October, Israel's police commissioner, Kobi Shabtai, made his position clear.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KOBI SHABTAI: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "Whoever wants to be a citizen of Israel, welcome," he said. "Whoever wants to identify with Gaza is welcome. I will put them on a bus headed there."
Myssana Morany is a lawyer with the rights group Adalah, who represents Khelefe. She says, Israeli courts used to be more sympathetic to her clients but not since October 7.
MYSSANA MORANY: I'm standing there arguing the same things that I argued before that led to the release of a lot of people. I'm getting to a dead end with the court, with the judges, with the attorney general.
AL-SHALCHI: Even the judges are harsher, she says.
MORANY: They just look at me and say - and many times we get this answer. What was before the 7 of October is not what's happening after the 7 of October.
AL-SHALCHI: We reached out to the Israeli Justice Department, but they didn't respond with comment.
BILAL DEKKEH: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: In the Jabalieh Mosque in Jaffa, Imam Bilal Dekkeh leads about 10 men in afternoon prayers. Palestinian Muslims come to find spiritual guidance from Dekkeh at a time of anguish. But even the preacher says he's avoiding any reference to the war.
DEKKEH: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "Any Friday sermon about Gaza and the police will arrest you," he says.
Dekkeh says many in his congregation come to ease their pain over the war in private.
DEKKEH: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "I tell them to be patient, Dekkeh says, "that there's a mighty God above."
In the heart of Jaffa last week, a deadly shooting exposed these tensions.
(SOUNDBITE OF SIRENS WAILING)
AL-SHALCHI: At the very same moment sirens wail during an Iranian missile attack, two Palestinian men from the Israeli-occupied West Bank opened fire at a Jaffa light rail station. Police said seven people were killed. Hamas claimed responsibility. Israeli Shai Peretz witnessed the shooting.
SHAI PERETZ: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "The Arabs of Jaffa are a danger," he told reporters. "Anyone who harms us will be dealt with an iron fist."
During the attack, one shooter ran into a nearby mosque and warned worshippers not to leave. Later, far-right minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir came to the scene.
ITAMAR BEN-GVIR: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "If a connection is found to the mosque, we need to close it, to demolish it," Ben-Gvir said.
There was no connection, Israeli police later said. But once again, Palestinian citizens were caught in the middle. Arabs were among those wounded, and yet, they were blamed. Eran Nissan is a Jewish medic who treated the wounded and told Israeli TV that the security minister, Ben-Gvir, was exploiting the horrific attack.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ERAN NISSAN: (Non-English language spoken).
AL-SHALCHI: "Jews and Arabs are trying to build a life together," Nissan said, a life that Palestinian citizens of Israel struggle to navigate as the war in Gaza continues.
Hadeel Al-Shalchi, NPR News, Tel Aviv.
DETROW: You can hear more stories of lives changed since October 7 on NPR's State Of The World podcast. You can find it on your favorite podcast player or the NPR App.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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