Israel: One Dead, 15 Wounded in Weekend Violence

i24 News – Violence over the weekend in Arab locales across Israel left one man dead and 15 wounded, including two children, in “unusual cases of severe violence” in Arab communities.

Mohanned Araki was shot and killed in his car on Friday in the Arab city of Tira in central Israel. His 10-year-old son was moderately wounded, and a six-year-old relative is in serious condition, Haaretz reported.

Araki was known to police, who suspect the motive of his murder was related to a criminal dispute.

Authorities are still searching for the suspects.

“The entire vehicle was covered in blood and many bullets had pierced its frame,” said Magen David Adom (MDA) paramedic Morshad Jabali.

In a separate shooting the same day, five men were moderately to lightly wounded when a gunman arrived at a funeral in Kfar Qasem, an Arab city near the West Bank, and began shooting indiscriminately, according to eyewitnesses.

The incidents were “unusual cases of severe violence in the Arab community, which will be investigated as high priority,” a police statement read.

Since the beginning of 2021, 52 people in Israel’s Arab community have been killed by violence, according to Haaretz.

On Saturday, a 25-year-old man was stabbed and severely wounded in the northern Israeli-Arab town of Eliabun, Ynetnews reported.

A MDA team provided first aid and evacuated the victim to Baruch Padeh Medical Center near Tiberias.

Also on Saturday morning, a 32-year-old man was stabbed in the same town, Walla! News reported.

Hours earlier, six people were wounded in a violent incident in the Arab community of Zarzir in the northern Galilee.