MK Mansour Abbas
MK Mansour AbbasHezki Baruch

The Israeli Arab leadership has found its first success in trying to stop the wave of murders that has swept over Arab communities this year.

According to a report in the Israeli-Arab news website Panet, MK Mansour Abbas, the chairman of the United Arab List (Ra'am), which represents the Israeli Islamic Movment's more moderate southern branch, announced that a truce has been reached between two feuding families to prevent reprisal attacks.

A few days ago, Ashqar Ashqar, aged 43, was shot dead in the town of Kabul in the Galilee amid a feud between two rival families. Ancient Arabic tradition dictates that family members of a murder victim may and are even required to take the law into their own hands and avenge the victim through reprisal killings. This often leads to an endless cycle of murder and violence between rival families.

Through talks that were moderated by the National Conciliation Committee led by Sheikh Abu Riyadh Ali Shatiwi and the local conciliation committee in Kabul, a "Hudna," or an Islamic truce, was reached between the Ashqar and Riyan families who reside in the town.

Mansour Abbas praised the responsible position of the Riyan family, which was willing to sit down and accept the agreement that the conciliation council offered.

According to data from the Abraham Initiatives, since the beginning of the year, 188 Arabs were murdered, 171 of them were shot dead, 83 were under the age of 30, and 13 were women.