Police arrest 3 in Umm al-Fahm, find cache of weapons, bottles with gasoline

Police arrested three young men during a home raid in Umm al-Fahm this morning, the force says in a statement.

Police say the arrests were carried out following yesterday’s double homicide in the Arab city, but do not specify whether the three are suspects in the shooting, and do not respond to a request for further comment.

During the search, officers found in the suspects’ possession a cache of weapons including pistols, gun parts, pipe bombs and bottles filled with gasoline.

It emerged during the suspects’ arrest that they had been violating a court-issued restraining order barring them from Umm al-Fahm, police add.

Officers are expected to bring the trio to court later today with a request to extend their detention.

Yesterday morning, unknown assailants shot and killed a man and his son while they were driving in the city’s southern outskirts.

Hours later, law enforcement chided the court system in a statement, claiming that a local judge set free a suspect whom police sought to keep in custody two days prior. He was released subject to limitations.

Police said “it is possible that the murder could have been avoided” if the judge heeded officers’ request, but similarly declined to elaborate on whether the freed suspect is implicated in the homicide or was one of those arrested today.

Since the start of the year, 51 members of the Arab community have been killed in homicides. The soaring homicide rate follows the deadliest year to date for Arab society, in which 252 people killed in violent incidents over the course of 2025.

In the overwhelming majority of Arab sector homicides, police fail to arrest suspects, with many victims’ families complaining that officers neglect to even update them on the investigation’s progress.