East Jerusalem man shot dead in his car in suspected murder

An East Jerusalem man was fatally shot in his car overnight Wednesday-Thursday in a suspected homicide.

The gunmen were believed to have fled the scene of the crime, in the Ras al-Amud neighborhood, on a motorcycle, according to Hebrew media reports.

Police were investigating and searching for the perpetrators.

The victim was identified by media reports as 23-year-old Amir al-Ladawi of the Shuafat Refugee Camp.

He was taken to Hadassah Mount Scopus Medical Center after the shooting, where doctors pronounced his death.

The motive was not immediately clear.

Arab communities have seen a surge in violence in recent years, driven mainly, but not only, by organized crime.

Since the beginning of 2021, at least 112 Arabs were killed in suspected homicides, according to the Abraham Initiatives nonprofit. Of them, 93 were Arab citizens of Israel and another 19 were Palestinians, either from East Jerusalem or with Israeli residency.

Arab Israelis blame police, who they say have failed to crack down on powerful criminal organizations and largely ignore the violence, which includes family feuds, mafia turf wars and violence against women. The community has also suffered from decades of neglect.

On Wednesday, police continued their efforts to fight crime in the south, with 1,200 officers taking part in widespread raids. According to the Israel Police, since the start of the crackdown, 225 suspects have been arrested and 56 firearms, 40 cars, and NIS 3.4 million in assets were seized.

In August, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that violence and crime in Arab Israeli communities was a “national calamity.”

On Sunday evening, a woman was stabbed to death in her home in the northern Arab town of Jadeidi-Makr, officials said. The 55-year-old woman — identified as Aisha Abadi — was pronounced dead at the scene. Police detained her husband in connection with her murder.

Shortly after her body was brought to the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, a brawl erupted between Abadi’s relatives on the hospital grounds.

Two security guards were lightly hurt while attempting to prevent the crowd from entering the hospital building, the hospital said in a statement.

Recently police have been sending officers to hospitals following cases of violence in the Arab community, to prevent such brawls.

The incident followed a massive armed brawl between a pair of families outside of Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba last week, and a number of other minor brawls at other hospitals during the past week.

The woman’s death came hours after the government announced the allocation of NIS 155 million (approximately $50 million) for a national plan to combat violence against women.