In Haifa, the large "mixed" Jewish-Arab city in northern Israel, garage owner Easa Fayed is what you might call a loudmouth. His sharp political commentaries are read and listened to by over 250,000 subscribers on several social media platforms. On October 13, this bearded man, who left school early and reads a lot (he quotes the founder of the Jewish state David Ben-Gurion at every turn), was arrested at his home by dozens of masked police officers. He spent four days in prison, before being released without any charges brought against him. He is forbidden to express himself online for a month.

"We will continue to support our people despite their policies," said Fayed the previous day, in solidarity with the Gazans, who have been under bombardment by the Israeli army since the Hamas attack on October 7. The police saw this as an incitement to disorder. They keep a very close eye on the minority of Palestinians who are citizens of Israel, making up around 20% of the country's population.

Since the Hamas attack, two demonstrations have been forcefully dispersed in Haifa and the Arab town of Umm al-Fahm. The country's police chief, Kobi Shabtai, urged everyone to choose sides: "Anyone who wants to be a citizen of Israel, ahlan wa sahlan [welcome]. Anyone who wishes to identify with Gaza, is welcome too – I will put him on the buses that are heading there now." Meanwhile, the minister of national security, the Jewish supremacist Itamar Ben-Gvir, handed out rifles to civilians, in front of cameras.

'The vast majority of cases involve freedom of expression'

Since the start of the war, some 41,000 applications for gun permits have been submitted by Israelis, according to data presented to the Knesset last week. The country's Palestinians fear that one of these weapons could end up being turned against one of them, long likened by the right to a "fifth column."

Once released, Fayed discovered that the credit card terminal in his garage had been suspended by his bank, which threatened to close his personal account. Haifa's sanitation department fined him twice for smoking in his office. He lost all his customers, who until then had put up with his sympathy for Balad, an Arab micro-party that rejects the duality of the "Jewish and democratic" Israeli state. Young people came to loiter at night under the security cameras in his garage. One spray-painted the word "Hamas" on a wall. Another pulled a bottle from his jogging shorts – gasoline, Fayed believes. He fled at the first bark of the garage guards, a German shepherd and a pink-eyed rottweiler.

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