Police arrest seven crime figures in Arab town of Umm al-Fahm
Suspects alleged to be involved in attempted murder, extortion, weapons trafficking, racketeering and other offenses
Police arrested seven residents of the northern Israeli town of Umm al-Fahm Tuesday night on suspicion of involvement in extortion, attempted murder, weapons trafficking, gunfire, racketeering and several other offenses.
The seven are considered dominant figures in the town’s criminal scene.
They were to be brought before the Haifa Magistrate’s Court Wednesday for a remand extension hearing, police said.
Umm al-Fahm, 20 kilometers (12 miles) northwest of Jenin and 40 kilometers (24 miles) south of Haifa, is one of the biggest Arab cities in Israel.
The city has suffered a wave of violent incidents.
In April a man and his 13-year-old nephew were shot dead at a party ahead of a wedding. That same month Sheikh Mohammad Sa’adeh, 45, was fatally shot as he he left the city’s al-Tawhid Mosque.
A relative of Sa’adeh was murdered a year ago and a brother of that victim was seriously injured in another recent shooting.
In a separate incident, a man was shot and killed in Umm al-Fahm in September.
Flooded with illegal weapons, some Arab-Israeli cities have become hotbeds of crime, in a trend that Arab-Israeli lawmakers say the Israel Police is reluctant to combat.