Principal, Haifa man gunned down in separate incidents

The principal of a school was hospitalized in critical condition, and a Haifa man was killed, in two separate shooting incidents Thursday morning.

School in the Bedouin town of Kuseife in southern Israel was called off for the day after the principal of the Abu Wadi school was shot while driving near a government building early in the morning.

He was rushed to Beersheba’s Soroka hospital and police opened an investigation.

The background to the shooting was not immediately known, but officials said it was not thought to be tied to his role as principal, the Ynet news site reported.

However, police said the attack still endangered schoolchildren.

“We are talking about a serious shooting incident while children were on their way to school,” a police official told Ynet. “Only by chance was nobody else hurt.”

In Haifa, one man was killed and another two were injured in a drive-by shooting in broad daylight in the center of the city, it what may have been a gangland assassination.

A motorcyclist fired on the three men as they drove down Hameginim Street across from Haifa’s port. The man who died was described by police as being in his 40s.

The other two men, ages 32 and 41, were taken to Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center, and their injuries are being reported as moderate.

According to paramedics at the scene, the two were still conscious after the attack.

Local Haifa police quickly began canvassing the area for the driver of the motorcycle, a police spokesperson said.

According to the Israel Police, the killing is being investigated as criminal — and not nationalistic — in nature.

“The shooting was carried out in the middle of the intersection from a motorcycle to the vehicle,” Haifa Police Chief Avi Adri said. “Afterward the shooter fled the scene, and we have begun searching after him.”

“The victims are members of a Haifa family that is well known by the police,” he added.

These two attacks are only the most recent in a series of criminal bombings and shootings across the country.

In Ashdod on April 21, a grenade was thrown into an automobile, injuring a man and a woman.

On Saturday night, two young children and a teenager were injured in Eilat when a man attempted to kill a former member of the Michael Mor crime family. The father of the three injured minors was later arrested for his possible involvement in an alleged revenge attack against Mor’s home in Nahariya.

And earlier this week, three people were injured in an alleged assassination attempt in the Tel Aviv suburb of Givatayim. According to police, the target was well known to police and one of the three is described as his bodyguard.