A senior member of a prominent crime organization was shot dead on Friday in Ramle, a city in central Israel with significant Jewish and Arab populations.
Early on Friday, 50-year-old Ali Jarushi was rushed to a local hospital in critical condition after being shot multiple times near a mosque.
Jarushi is a central figure in the Israeli crime family of the same name. He is well known as an arbitrator in disputes in the Israeli criminal underworld. According to police, he was shot near the Atef Jarushi mosque in the Jawarish neighborhood in Ramle.
Police suspect the murder is part of a blood feud within the Jarushi family – a conflict that claimed the lives of six people in the last two years.
Following the murder, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said on Friday that he will ask Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow the Shin Bet security services to be deployed against crime organizations. Ben-Gvir said that “there’s no escape from using the Shin Bet against what is becoming a frequent phenomenon.”
“The shin Bet can provide more quality intelligence and special investigative abilities that aren’t available to the police,” he added.
Jarushi is the fifth person murdered in Israel’s Arab community since the start of 2023. Last week, a 44-year-old man was shot to death in northern Israel, and last Thursday, a young man from East Jerusalem was stabbed to death.
