Man accused of ransacking Tel Aviv apartment that he posed as southern evacuee to live at

Resident of coastal city under house arrest for allegedly damaging home offered to evacuated residents of south, stealing owner’s possessions

By ToI Staff 9 January 2024, 2:20 am

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Property allegedly stolen by a man posing as an evacuee from southern Israel purported to have fraudulently gained access to a Tel Aviv apartment volunteered by its owner for displaced people, January 7, 2024. (Credit: Police spokesperson)

A Tel Aviv apartment lent by its owner to displaced residents of southern Israel was damaged and burglarized by a suspect who pretended to be an evacuee from the south, police said Monday.

According to a police statement, the apartment owner complained to the force that her apartment was damaged and valuables were stolen from it by a resident of southern Israel who had been living there since the Hamas terror onslaught three months ago.

Police said they promptly identified the suspect and, upon questioning him, discovered he was a 38-year-old resident of Tel Aviv who was posing as a displaced person.

The suspect was released to house arrest under restrictive conditions, while officers returned the stolen property to the woman.

The statement from police said the owner of the apartment was abroad when the war in Gaza began following the Hamas-led massacres on October 7, in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 240 taken hostage. Following the shock assault, some 60,000 residents of towns near the Gaza Strip were evacuated from their homes. About 80,000 residents of northern Israel have also been displaced, as Israel engages in deadly skirmishes with the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group along the Lebanese border.

After seeing an advertisement from a group coordinating housing for evacuees from southern Israel, she offered her vacant apartment.

Some three months later, the woman returned to Israel, after the man put up in her apartment had already left. When she got home, she found it severely damaged, with antique furniture burnt and some NIS 10,000 worth of appliances and collectibles missing.

Damage in Tel Aviv apartment volunteered by its owner for displaced people, allegedly caused by a man posing as an evacuee from southern Israel purported to have fraudulently gained access to the apartment, January 7, 2023. (Credit: Police spokesperson)

Since the October 7 attack and ensuing war, there have been a number of cases of Israelis exploiting the situation for personal gain.

Last week, three people were arrested on suspicion of impersonating relatives of hostages and fraudulently taking about NIS 100,000 in donations. In early November, police announced the arrest of four suspects for stealing valuables from a protest encampment in Tel Aviv set up by relatives of the hostages.