Three Israelis were murdered Saturday in the space of only ten hours, marking a rise in the country's homicide rate, Haaretz reported.
A guest worker was stabbed to death early Sunday morning after a brawl at a Rehovot pub, which is frequented by foreign laborers.
A police source was quoted by the Tel Aviv-based paper as saying that the fight broke out among several drunken customers, one of whom pulled a knife and stabbed another to death.
The police have arrested one man and are currently investigating the incident, said the daily.
Police also found the body of a man early Sunday morning, who was apparently murdered at an abandoned building in Petah Tikva, which is used by homeless citizens. Police believe the man was killed after a struggle with some of the other homeless inhabitants of the building.
The third murder took place Saturday evening when a shopkeeper in the Arab-Israeli village of Taibeh was shot dead by a masked assailant.
A special police task force has been assigned to the murder case because of the unclear motive and the professional technique with which it was executed. Both these factors, a police official told the paper, make the murder "strange and out of the ordinary."
Since the outbreak of the latest Palestinian uprising against 34 years of Israeli military occupation, newspapers like the Los Angeles Times have reported rising rates of escapism, drug use and tension in Israel's pressure-cooker society – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
