Mohammed Sheikh al-Eid, 30, from Rahat, was shot dead on Sunday; his name will mean nothing to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Eid is one of around 160 Arab citizens of Israel killed since the beginning of the year, a number similar to that of the corresponding period last year.
His killing was the 10th in Rahat; life in this Bedouin city has become intolerable under the control of organized crime.
Extortion, violence and threats take place out in the open in the Negev, and bombs and grenades explode throughout the country: in Ashkelon, Ashdod and even in the center of Tel Aviv.
The police, whose commanders are busy pandering to Ben-Gvir, are helpless to act, despite the fact that "achieving governability in the south" was central to his campaign platform.
Conversely, extensive police activity was seen in Tel Aviv this weekend. Detectives and high-ranking police officers were mobilized to investigate an allegation that a young woman had thrown sand at the minister.
The suspect was brought in her bathing suit to the police station, where she was given clothes; she spent the night at Neveh Tirtza Women's Prison – not at a police lockup – and was interrogated twice, alongside additional investigative actions.
A deputy commissioner in the Israel Prison Service, who was appointed to his position by the minister a week ago, even attended her detention hearing Saturday night, at which the police requested that she remain in custody. The display of governability toward the young woman continues; the police intend to charge her in an accelerated procedure.
The rampant crime on the one hand and the use of disproportionate force on the other indicate that the Israel Police have completed their transformation into an instrument in the service of Ben-Gvir.
A few weeks ago, hundreds of right-wing activists broke into the Sde Teiman and Beit Lid military bases; the police did not act to stop the rioters, and none were investigated.
On Sunday it was revealed that this was no accident. During the incident at Beit Lid, Ben-Gvir's security secretary gave instructions to police commanders to refrain from using force (Josh Breiner and Bar Peleg, Haaretz, Sunday).
Ben-Gvir is about to decide on a number of appointments at the top of the police force. If he succeeds in appointing more loyalists, the Israel Police will follow the path of the Israel Prison Service.
The starving of Palestinian security prisoners, carrying out the will of the minister even if it is not an official order, makes Israel a target for the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
The leaked photographs and videos documenting the conduct of guards at Megiddo Prison Friday as part of routine activity are rare evidence of what happens behind the walls in the Ben-Gvir era: Men, some of them shirtless, lie prostrate on the floor, their wrists bound behind their backs, as a guard dog barks just inches from their heads.
The attorney general and state prosecutor must draw a red line and demand that the police and the prison service maintain their independence and professionalism. The entire law enforcement system is now subordinate to a cabinet minister who does as he pleases with it. Soon it will be too late to stop him, and the damage will be irreversible.