Man killed in apparent mob bombing in Rehovot

A man was killed and another seriously injured in Rehovot Saturday night when a bomb planted under a car exploded in an apparent underworld assassination.

A woman in her thirties, apparently unrelated to the two, was lightly injured.

The bomb went off around 9:30 p.m. in the city’s Kiryat Moshe neighborhood. One man in his forties was critically injured. He later died of his wounds on the way to the hospital. Another man, in his fifties, was seriously injured and evacuated for treatment.

Police said they had opened an investigation into the incident, but added they suspected a mob hit.

Last Friday a 40-year-old man was killed when a vehicle in which he was seated exploded near the Sokolov train station in Hod Hasharon. His 17-year-old daughter, who was also in the car, suffered light wounds and was rushed to the Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikvah for medical treatment.

The victim was named Saturday as Chico Shai Bachar.

An initial police investigation into the case found that Bachar was set to testify in court against a known criminal in the coming weeks. Police suspect the explosion was criminally motivated and that Bachar was the target of an assassination attempt.

Over the past year, several car-bombing incidents were carried out across Israel apparently by members of criminal gangs attempting to assassinate rivals.