Agricultural Crime Skyrockets in Southern Israel

 Agricultural crime has skyrocketed in southern Israel since the beginning of the year, with farmers mainly blaming a justice system that does not penalize criminals sufficiently to create proper deterrence, as Ynet reported last week

The culprits are usually Bedouin, whether working alone or in gangs. The thieves steal animals, agricultural machines, farm produce and piping from fields and barns, and break into homes as well.

Cattle and sheep theft alone has risen more than 200% over 2024.

A vast majority of the criminals are not caught, and even when some are, usually very few of the animals are recovered.

This is despite the authorities doing a better job than they used to.

“I don’t have many complaints about the police,” said Eran Guy, deputy security coordinator of a moshav in the western Negev. “A decade ago, people would steal, I would call 100 and they would come after two or three days. There has been a change…. They try very hard. But [the area] is full of crime.”

There is also a very active drug and weapons smuggling route nearby, he noted, as well as openly growing marijuana fields.

“In the southern district, from Ashdod to Eilat, which controls 60% of the agricultural land in the country, most of the fields are in isolated places… If there is an isolated wheat field and there are no cameras in the area, my chances of catching a thief are zero,” said Superintendent Amos Damari, commander of the Southern Border Police Division.

Ambushes based on intelligence and knowledge of the various growing seasons is the most successful tactic the police use, he explained.

The problem of attaining justice is two-fold. Indictments in general, said the report, will only be filed for relatively large thefts, and the sentences meted out are too light.

Active prison time ranging from several months to five years are unremarkable, and fines are rarely high.

Those who are underage get off even easier. Bedouin minors are living lives of crime and do not fear getting caught “because the law is with them and they have good lawyers,” said Guy. “This attitude will not stop the thieves”.

“If they would catch a sheep rustler and put him in jail for 15 years, and put the next guy in for 15 years, they’d understand that there’s no such thing as making easy money,” he said.

Farmers have become fearful for their personal safety as well as their financial wellbeing.

“First of all, there is the damage to your sense of personal security,” D., a veteran dairy farmer, said. “My farm is my home. And someone broke into your house while you were at home. He took what was yours. It makes you sleepless for many nights to come.”

“It’s a blow on an economic and personal level,” he added. “The members are suffering, they are not sleeping at night, and there is a fear of letting the children roam freely in the moshav.”