A prominent real estate businessman was shot dead Friday morning outside a synagogue in the central Israel city of Rehovot, with police reportedly believing the man had been mired in debt. In a separate incident, an Eritrean national was shot dead in south Tel Aviv Friday morning in a suspected conflict between criminals.
According to Hebrew media reports, an initial police probe indicated that the 44-year-old man parked his car next to an improvised synagogue on Mordehai Bashist Street in Rehovot. After the man exited his vehicle, an assassin approached him, confirmed his identity and shot him at close range.
According to eyewitnesses, the assassin then fled on a motorcycle. The victim was later confirmed to be well-known real estate businessman Eldad Peri.
“The wounded man was lying unconscious in the parking lot, suffering from gunshot wounds,” said Magen David Adom paramedic Alon Cohen. “We performed medical examinations but he was without vital signs and there was nothing left to be done other than to pronounce him dead.”
Police opened a murder investigation, launched a manhunt and set up roadblocks in the area.
According to Haaretz, Peri had recently found himself in considerable debt, due in part to a failure to fulfill guarantees made to clients. Court-ordered bankruptcy proceedings were reportedly being initiated against him.
The report said that the main suspicion is that the murder was committed because of Peri’s debts to organized crime-related figures.
Also on Friday morning, a foreign national was shot dead in Tel Aviv’s Neve Sha’anan neighborhood.
Medics treated the critically wounded Eritrean man at the scene and took him to Ichilov Hospital, where doctors later pronounced him dead.
Police arrived at the scene and began investigating the circumstances of the incident. According to a police statement cited by the Ynet news site, “the background is probably a local conflict between criminals.”
Read More:Prominent real estate businessman shot dead outside synagogue in Rehovot
2021-10-15 08:03:45
