14-year-old shot dead, relative injured in Negev town as murders continue to spike

A fourteen-year-old boy was shot and killed in the southern town of Ararat an-Naqab, police said Thursday — the second deadly shooting in Israel’s Arab community in hours, and the tenth homicide in the country within a week.

The boy has not been publicly named.

Another man, a relative of the teen, was injured in the attack in Ararat an-Naqab, also known as Ar’ara Banegev, which Israel Police described in a statement as the result of a “vendetta” among feuding clans in the desert town.

The Magen David Adom emergency service said it took the two to the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, where doctors later declared the teen dead. The man, aged around 30, was in a serious condition, MDA said.

The killing was the 105th in the Arab community so far this year, according to the Abraham Initiatives, which tracks violence.

The tally is significantly higher than the 88 killings that took place to this point last year, according to the group.

The shooting came amid an unrelenting crime wave, which experts say has worsened considerably over the past two years since the installation of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, whose portfolio includes the police. Much of the deadly violence has happened in the Arab Israeli community.

Ben Gvir has remained silent throughout the past few days despite the high number of murders.

The teen’s killing came hours after Issa Frija, 38, was shot dead outside his home in the central city of Kafr Qasim.

Frija, who has a criminal past, had been arrested a month ago in connection with a homicide in the central district town of Kafr Bara, but was released due to lack of evidence, Hebrew media reported.

♦️ רצח בכפר קאסם
לפני זמן קצר, ליד כיכר ראבעה בעיר כפר קאסם נורה ונרצח צעיר בשנות השלושים, מותו נקבע במקום.
נשים שהיו בקרבת הועברו לבית החולים עקב הלם וחרדה.

???? הנרצח הוא הצעיר עיסר פריג'. pic.twitter.com/NPmxiOMpLm

— Asslan Khalil (@KhalilAsslan) June 4, 2025

Frija was waiting outside his home for his two children when he was killed.

A video of the shooting shared on social media showed a car pulling up alongside him, with shots fired that knocked Frija to the ground.

Three armed individuals emerged from the vehicle, two with rifles and one with a pistol. While the latter appeared to stand guard, the two carrying rifles fired multiple shots at the prone Frija, apparently to ensure he was mortally wounded. The shooters then escaped in the car.

MDA medics called to the scene declared him dead.

The shootings came after two men were shot dead in Kafr Qasim in another crime gang-related slaying on Saturday.

On Monday, two men were killed by a car bomb in the Arab Israeli town of Jaljulia. The explosion also injured a 10-year-old passerby, who was taken to the hospital in moderate condition.

The same day, a woman was stabbed to death in Bat Yam, apparently by her partner, who jumped to his death from a building’s roof after a 9-hour standoff with police.

Meanwhile, a 30-year-old man was shot and killed in Netanya in what appeared to be a criminal dispute, while a 20-year-old man was shot and killed in Lod the day before. Three suspects were arrested in connection with that killing. Police said the Lod shooting was also apparently part of a criminal dispute.

Also Sunday, a mother and her young son were found dead after a fire erupted in their home in the city of Modiin, in what police were investigating as a murder-suicide.

Ben Gvir’s first year in office, 2023, saw murder rates in the Arab community soar to their highest ever, and roughly double what they had been the previous year. The minister had gutted a program put in place by his predecessor Omer Barlev and Arab municipal leaders to combat crime in the Arab community.

In a belated report earlier this year, Ben Gvir’s office confirmed that homicides in the Arab communities had more than doubled in 2023. His office has yet to release data for 2024.

The vast majority of Arab sector murder cases are unsolved by law enforcement, with many community leaders criticizing police for not doing enough to deter violent crime in Arab locales.