Five members of the same family were shot dead overnight Thursday in the northern Bedouin village of Basmat Tab'un, bringing the death toll in the Arab sector to a new high.
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The family – a mother in her 40s with her 25-year-old son, her two nephews aged 15 and 17, and a relative in his late 40s – were possibly targeted in retaliation for the killing of Atef Abu Kalib, a 50-year-old Haifa resident and junkyard owner, earlier in the day.
Video: Haifa shooting in broad daylight / Free usage under Israeli copyright law (Section 27A)
Abu Kalib was gunned down by two masked gunmen in broad daylight while driving through a main Haifa street. The two assailants then escaped by car.
The Basmat Tab'un mass shooting is one of the "most abhorrent events we have ever encountered – a targeted elimination of an entire family that was apparently in response to a killing in Haifa this morning," Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai, who arrived at the scene, said. "All the resources of the Israel Police are allocated to this incident in order to find and bring to justice the murderers."
Since the start of 2023, 188 people have been killed in the Arab sector.
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