Four women injured, one seriously, by grenade tossed at Ashdod building
Victims, aged 16-23, said outside when explosive lobbed at residential building; police link incident to feud between crime groups, believe assailant attacked wrong location
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Four women were injured overnight Saturday when a grenade was thrown at a home in Ashdod, sparking a fire.
Among those hurt was a 16-year-old girl who was seriously injured. The other three, aged 17, 21, and 23, were moderately injured.
The explosion happened on Ibn Gvirol Street in the southern coastal city.
Israel Police said the incident was not a terror attack, but was apparently due to warring crime gangs in the area.
Magen David Adom medics alerted to the attack reported they found the four injured people lying on the ground outside the building, all of them conscious.
The injured were taken to Ashdod’s Assuta Medical Center for treatment.
Lachish district police commander Roi Valdman arrived at the scene for a situation assessment.
An initial police investigation found that the four victims were sitting outside in the yard of the building when the grenade was tossed towards them, the Walla outlet reported without citing sources. Police have determined that the four victims had no connection to the criminal feud and that the assailant had identified the wrong building as the target for the attack.
It came after police reported that overnight Thursday, a grenade was thrown on Shu’alei Shimshon Street in the city, also amid feuding crime groups. It caused some damage but no injuries.
Walla reported that there is an ongoing turmoil in the criminal underworld in the Lachish region as newer gangs try to wrestle control from more established crime organizations.
An underworld source told the outlet that the feuds are beginning to “bubble up to the surface.”
Police have recently engaged in a number of operations to quell the rise of the newer groups, and some actions led to the confiscation of grenades and other weapons. Police were also able to thwart a number of gangland hits, in some cases shortly before they were to be carried out, the report said.
Israel has seen a recent wave of violent crime largely linked to battles between crime families.
There have been a number of recent grenade attacks as organized crime groups battle each other on city streets.
Last month, a man was badly hurt in Herzliya by a grenade blast. It was the second incident in the city within a week, and the third within a month.
The Times of Israel Community.