Mother, son found dead in Netanya home in suspected double homicide
Preliminary findings suggest two were stabbed, neighbors reported hearing shouting from apartment; incident comes hours after suspected murder of woman in Rishon Lezion
Michael Horovitz is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel
A woman and her adult son were found dead in their home in the coastal city of Netanya on Friday, in an apparent double homicide.
Police said that officers and rescue workers broke into the apartment and found a woman in her 40s, and a man in his 20s with extensive injuries and without vital signs. They were declared dead at the scene, the Magen David Adom Ambulance service said.
According to reports, the pair’s wounds indicated that they had been stabbed to death.
Police said the killings did not appear to be terror-related.
No suspects were named, but Hebrew media reports claimed police were seeking the woman’s husband for questioning.
Neighbors told the Ynet news site they called authorities to the scene after hearing shouts from the apartment.
The killings would appear to mark the second and third domestic slayings on Friday, amid a rash of killings that has sent the murder rate skyward in recent weeks. Over 90 suspected murders have taken place since the beginning of the year, including more than a dozen involving suspected femicide victims.
On Friday morning, a Rishon Lezion woman was found dead in her apartment building after being stabbed to death. Her ex-husband was arrested on suspicion of involvement and a judge ordered him to remain behind bars for seven days at least.
Verdit Danziger, CEO of the No To Violence Against Woman organization said Friday she was “running out of words” amid the rocketing violence.
She slammed politicians who “probably do not understand the magnitude of the national tragedy that is unfolding before our eyes,” and said with proper funding of anti-domestic violence programs, the tragedy may have been avoided.
On Sunday, President Isaac Herzog on Monday decried the dramatic surge in homicides and violent crime as an “epidemic” plaguing Israel, hours after a 24-year-old mother was gunned down in Haifa, in a suspected criminal dispute.
Campaigners have sought to pressure the government to devote more resources to protecting women and make good on promised earmarks meant to help stem domestic violence.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
