35 People Found in a Lod Hideout Flat After a Car Chase

A car chase through the central Israeli city of Lod ended with the discovery of 35 people from the West Bank staying in Israel without permits, according to a statement issued by the Israel Police on 7 July 2026. The driver, a 42-year-old woman from East Jerusalem, was arrested.

According to the statement, the driver did not obey instructions, accelerated and fled at high speed in a way that endangered lives. Border Police officers from the Central District and officers of the Central District police gave chase. When the vehicle reached a residential complex in Lod, three suspects got out and ran towards a flat being used as a hideout. Officers searched the area and found 35 people inside the flat, all described as residents of Judea and Samaria - the name Israel uses for the West Bank - staying in the country illegally. The driver was taken to Lod station for further investigation. In a separate operation the same morning, the statement said, Border Police and Central District officers stopped a minibus carrying 12 West Bank residents who were also in Israel without permits, and arrested the driver, who was suspected of transporting them.

Where Lod is

Lod lies about 15 kilometres south-east of Tel Aviv and roughly eight kilometres south of Ben Gurion Airport, Israel's main international gateway. It is one of the country's mixed cities: of its 94,000 residents recorded in 2024, census figures from 2019 put roughly 31 per cent as Arab citizens of Israel and the rest as Jews and others. Its position on the road and rail network between Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the airport makes it a natural transit point.

Why so many people are entering without permits

The permit system that once moved Palestinian labour into Israel has largely collapsed. About 100,000 Palestinians lost their work permits after the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 and fewer than 10,000 have been restored, the Times of Israel reported in February 2026. West Bank unemployment reached nearly 30 per cent by the end of 2025, against about 12 per cent before the war, and work in Israel had previously been worth some four billion dollars a year to the Palestinian economy. That report described people crossing the security barrier without permits to find work, and paying brokers more than triple the pre-war rate for black-market permits.

Enforcement of the ban has never been complete. In March 2024 the Times of Israel reported on an Israeli television investigation finding that some 2,400 businesses had obtained humanitarian exemptions allowing tens of thousands of Palestinian labourers to keep entering.

How often these operations happen

Interceptions on this scale are routine. In May 2026 Israel National News reported that Border Police arrested 42 West Bank residents in a single operation against what it called a large-scale entry attempt in the Lachish area of southern Israel. In February 2026 the Jerusalem Post reported the detention of about 30 people found in a vehicle near Nebi Samuel outside Jerusalem, along with the 60-year-old Jerusalem driver accused of bringing them across; that group said they were trying to reach Ramadan prayers in the city.

The force involved, the Border Police or Magav, is the gendarmerie arm of the Israel Police rather than a military unit. The Institute for National Security Studies assessed in 2023 that it fields more than 7,000 serving personnel, around a quarter of the entire police force, and works as a rapid-response arm for security, public order and serious crime.

What the statement did not say

The police did not say what offences the driver would be accused of, or whether she had been brought before a court. They did not say what happened to the 35 people found in the flat or the 12 in the minibus - whether they were arrested, questioned or returned to the West Bank - and gave no ages or other details for any of them. The statement did not say whether the three who ran from the car were among those found inside, whether anyone was hurt during the chase, or who owned or rented the flat.