Three young men in their 20s from the Arab city of Tira were killed late Tuesday night in a shooting at a vehicle near the community of Sde Warburg in the Sharon region, police and emergency services said.
Magen David Adom emergency medical teams pronounced all three dead at the scene. Police said the shooting was criminally motivated and announced the arrest of three suspects.
According to initial findings, the victims were shot while inside their car. After the gunfire, the driver lost control of the vehicle, which collided with a bus and crashed.
Police later said Central District Commander Amir Cohen held a situational assessment and assigned the investigation to the district’s major crimes unit.
Magen David Adom said its 101 emergency call center received the report at 10:16 p.m. Paramedics arriving at the scene found three men unconscious, without pulse or breathing.
“The three men were inside their vehicle, unconscious, with no pulse and no respiration, and suffering from gunshot wounds,” paramedic Liad Agi said in a statement. “After medical examinations, we were forced to pronounce them dead at the scene due to the severity of their injuries.”
Police said the background to the shooting was a blood feud stemming from a long-running dispute. Officers from the Sharon region operated at and around the scene as part of the investigation and the manhunt for those involved.
Fire and Rescue Services said firefighters carried out complex and prolonged rescue operations to extract the three victims, who were trapped in the vehicle and showed no signs of life.
The advocacy group Abraham Initiatives, which works to promote Jewish-Arab partnership and combat violence in Arab communities, said the triple killing “should shake the entire country,” calling for urgent joint action to curb crime.
The latest incident brings to 31 the number of people killed in violent crime this year in the Arab community, according to advocacy groups.