Residents of Arab towns in northern Israel say they lack adequate public shelters as rockets and missiles are fired from Lebanon and Iran. In Sakhnin, a town of 36,000 people located about 20 kilometers from the Lebanese border, Mayor Mazen Ghanayem said there is not a single proper public shelter for the community despite frequent air raid sirens and falling rocket fragments.

When alerts sound, residents must rely on private homes, often in older buildings without reinforced rooms. Those caught outside have few safe options, and the town’s small emergency shelters are limited in number and often poorly maintained. To expand access to safer spaces, local authorities have ordered about a dozen schools to keep their doors open at all times.

A 2025 report by the State Comptroller found that one third of Israelis lack access to a protected space, a figure that rises to half among non Jewish citizens and to 70 percent in Arab localities in the north. Civil rights advocates have criticized what they describe as unequal allocation of protective infrastructure, while local leaders argue that Jewish communities have far greater access to public shelters than Arab towns like Sakhnin.