Woman killed by car bomb on Ayalon Highway; police arrest estranged husband
Lia Malka, 35, is survived by couple’s 2-year-old daughter; suspect was reportedly questioned recently for threatening her and her family amid messy divorce proceedings
Police officers collect evidence at the scene of a car bombing that left a woman dead in Tel Aviv on June 4, 2026. (Screenshot/Israel Police)
A 35-year-old woman was killed in a car explosion on a highway near Tel Aviv on Thursday morning. Police later arrested her estranged husband on suspicion of involvement.
The victim, Lia Malka, is survived by the couple’s 2-year-old daughter. The girl was not in the car when it exploded while stopped in traffic on the central Ayalon Highway near the Holon Junction.
Speaking at the site of the blast, Tel Aviv District police chief Haim Sargaroff said the victim was killed when a bomb weighing half a kilogram (roughly one pound) detonated in her vehicle.
She was pronounced dead on the scene by medics who rushed to the flaming car, the Magen David Adom ambulance service said.
According to Hebrew media, police suspect Malka’s ex-husband arranged the killing amid the couple’s acrimonious divorce proceedings.
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The 32-year-old suspect had reportedly been questioned recently on suspicion of threatening Malka’s family.
Lia Cohen was killed by a car bomb while driving on the Ayalon Highway, near Tel Aviv, on June 4, 2026. (X, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
Malka’s cousin, Tom Nisani, wrote on social media that the suspect “is probably the one who ordered the murder or did it himself.”
The estranged husband had threatened Malka and her parents “for some time, and continued to walk around freely, planning the murder,” said Nisani.
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