Family wounded in suspected gangland carbombing
One victim, 37, seriously injured, wife and kids lightly hurt in Tel Aviv suburb of Or Yehuda, in apparent underworld hit
An explosion ripped through a car in the Tel Aviv suburb of Or Yehuda Sunday morning, seriously injuring a man, in what police suspect was a gangland assassination attempt.
A 37-year-old man was severely injured in the blast, on the city’s David Elazar Street. An explosive device was apparently placed underneath the vehicle before it was set off around 8 a.m.
The man’s wife and daughters, aged seven and three, were in the car at the time of the explosion and suffered light injuries, Walla news reported.
Paramedics arrived at the scene and administered first aid before evacuating them to Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer.
Officers launched an investigation into the bombing, and preliminary assumptions pointed to a criminal underworld assassination attempt, police said.
It was the latest in a series of high-profile gang violence incidents, and came just a week after the son of a crime boss was shot dead in Tel Aviv.
On Thursday police arrested three men near Ashkelon suspected of attempting to carry out a gangland assassination. Two of the suspects, Tel Aviv residents aged 41 and 33, were riding a motorcycle and had three explosive devices in their possession. They allegedly purchased the bombs from the third suspect, a 20-year-old Ashkelon resident, Israel Radio reported.
Last Saturday Shai Shirazi, 30, was mortally wounded in a shooting on Moshe Sneh Street in northern Tel Aviv. Unidentified assailants pulled up to the victim’s Mazda 3 at a red light and fired a large number of rounds into the vehicle. A second passenger, 45, was lightly wounded.
Both men were taken to the nearby Ichilov hospital, where Shirazi was pronounced dead. The assailants fled the scene.
Shirazi, known for links to the underworld, was the son of Rico Shirazi, a purported crime kingpin in the Sharon area. Officials described the incident as an apparent ambush by one criminal gang against another. The shooters are believed to have called the younger Shirazi and asked to meet, luring him into the trap.
Police have waged a massive campaign over recent years to crack down on organized crime, after a wave of gangland car bombings and other assassination attempts brought the issue to the fore in 2013 and 2014.