Tel Aviv police arrest the owner of a Jaffa paint store that exploded Monday night, killing three and injuring four.
Investigators initially believed an improperly installed gas canister was responsible for the explosion, which caused the one-story structure on Yefet Street in the southern Tel Aviv neighborhood to collapse and sparked a blaze and secondary explosions in the store full of flammable materials.
But on Thursday, police sources told Hebrew-language media outlets that traces of chemicals found at the site suggest the explosion may have been caused deliberately. The owner, police now say, was feuding with an unnamed party and may have set fire to his store in the context of that feud.
Firefighters and rescuers at the site of an explosion and building collapse in Jaffa on November 27, 2017. (Magen David Adom)
The dead were identified later in the week as Rimon Huri, 20, of Jaffa and Ali Abu Jama, 22, from Taibe, and Mohammed Yassin from Tulkarm.
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