Killings thought linked to Haifa slaying amid ongoing gang war

Police suspect a shooting in Basmat Tab’un that claimed five lives was carried out in revenge for a slaying this morning in Haifa of a 50-year-old junkyard owner, itself thought to have been meant to avenge an earlier killing, according to Hebrew media reports.

The killings are thought to be linked to an ongoing feud between the Bakri and Hariri criminal gangs, which has left dozens in the Arab community dead.

In the face of the ongoing crime wave, the Abraham Initiatives group calls for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fire National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who is in charge of the police, and to implement a “broad program to deal with crime in the Arab community.”

“This is an emergency situation,” the group says in a note appended to its ongoing tally of slayings in the community.