Ramle man murdered in his bed in apparent underworld revenge attack

A Ramle man was shot to death by assailants who broke into his home in the early hours of Wednesday morning, in an attack police reportedly believe may have been a revenge operation for the January slaying of a member of the Jarushi crime family.

According to Hebrew language media reports, Idris Akasheh, 19, was shot seven times in his bed, and managed to scream to his mother, “mom, they’re shooting me!”

After the assailants fled, an injured Akasheh was driven to the Yitzhak Shamir Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead, police said.

No arrests have been made.

The overnight slaying is the fourth killing in the Arab community in the past 72 hours.

The Akasheh family resides in the Juarish neighborhood of Ramle, where an ongoing dispute between the Jarushi and Karaja crime families has, so far, claimed dozens of lives.

Akasheh’s father, Jibril, was killed in a gangland shooting near the central city of Lod in 2020.

Screen capture from video of the the scene where a man was found dead next to Route 85, February 27, 2023. (Channel 13. Used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

On Sunday, two residents of the northern Arab town of Dir Al Assad were killed in an incident believed to be attributed to an ongoing feud in the criminal underworld.

And on Monday, a man was found lying dead next to a road in the north of the country with apparent gunshot wounds, in what police reportedly suspect was revenge murder for a double killing in the area the day before as rival crime families feud.

According to the anti-violence campaign group the Abraham Initiatives, 27 Arabs have been killed by violence and crime since the start of the year. Of those, 25 were Israeli citizens and two were Palestinians from East Jerusalem or the West Bank. That figure includes a man who was injured last year but died of his wounds in 2023.

Arab communities have seen a rising wave of violence in recent years. Many blame the police, who they say have failed to crack down on powerful criminal organizations and largely ignore the violence, which includes family feuds, mafia turf wars, and violence against women.