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Girl Murder in Rehovot : Sharon Promises Action on Israel Violence
"JERUSALEM - With the planned Gaza withdrawal consuming police attention, Israel has been hit by a crime wave that includes a 3-year-old girl being killed in a drive-by shooting, a teen being strangled on her way to a mall and four homeless men being burned to death.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised tough action during Sunday's weekly Cabinet meeting, and the murders continued Sunday. Assailants stabbed an accountant and stole his money as he stood in front of a Ramle bank planning to make a deposit, police said. He was the fifth person slain in eight days, Channel Two TV said.
The killing brought to 72 the number of murders recorded during the first five months of the year - a 35 percent increase from the same period in 2004, police said. While Israelis are used to dealing with deaths in the conflict with the Palestinians, violent crime has been relatively low. But police already have been stretched thin by the need to plan security for Sharon's Gaza withdrawal plan, scheduled to begin in August, and all agree the situation likely will worsen - and crime-fighting could further suffer - as the summer goes on.
The job of evacuating some 9,000 settlers from their homes will largely fall to police. They also will have to contend with withdrawal opponents, and much of their intelligence work already is focused here. Groups of youngsters have begun burning tires and blocking highway intersections with sit-down strikes to protest the withdrawal, and police have been forced to deploy in large numbers to try to prevent the demonstrations and clear roads.
The recent series of brutal killings has set Israelis on edge. Relatives of four recent victims wrote Sharon that "mad violence" in Israel has made "everyone crazed with fear," and they posed holding pictures of their slain kin for Sunday's front page of the mass circulation daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot.
For the past week, in fact, newspapers have been filled with pictures of the dead, and radio has broadcast interviews with the relatives. Public attention focused on the killings in late May when a 15-year-old was randomly attacked and strangled while walking to a mall in the quiet city of Rehovot near Tel Aviv. A youth on a furlough from juvenile detention center, apparently high at the time from sniffing glue, is suspected in the slaying.
Then, a 3-year-old girl was killed in a drive-by shooting as part of a botched mob hit outside a Ramle prison, and an 81-year-old man was set afire by a woman who owed him money. Several teens have been stabbed to death outside nightclubs in arguments over seemingly minor issues. Last week, an alleged serial killer was arrested in connection with the random slayings of four homeless men in the northern port city of Haifa.
"We need to make a massive effort to deal with this violence," Sharon told the Cabinet session to which he summoned the police chief and the attorney general. "I do not intend for only statements and talking to emerge from this meeting." Sharon promised decisions that would "change, from the roots, the violence we face today."
Police Chief Moshe Karadi asked the government to boost police funding and scrap the planned firing of 2,000 officers.
Israeli talk show host and columnist Yair Lapid called for a "Giuliani-like figure, sour-faced and efficient who will increase significantly the number of policemen, will make penalties more severe and will amend the laws," referring to Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York who led a crackdown on crime there.
Yediot's front page headline Sunday read "Stop the next murder" above a picture of the victims' relatives. Two inside pages were devoted to pictures of the people killed this year. The relatives implored Sharon in a letter, also printed on the front page, to "give security to our children and peace of mind to the mothers." But some experts said it was too early to say whether statistics were being blown of proportion by police trying to get a bigger budget and prevent staff cuts.
"It is a complicated time for the police and they are asking for extra money," said sociologist Gideon Fishman, who heads Haifa University's Center for Youth Policy. He noted that more police would not necessarily stop random killings, saying, "You can't have a policeman in every alley or with every three people.""
Source: Gavin Rabinowitz. Sharon promises action on Israel violence. NWSource.com (5 June 2005) [FullText]
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised tough action during Sunday's weekly Cabinet meeting, and the murders continued Sunday. Assailants stabbed an accountant and stole his money as he stood in front of a Ramle bank planning to make a deposit, police said. He was the fifth person slain in eight days, Channel Two TV said.
The killing brought to 72 the number of murders recorded during the first five months of the year - a 35 percent increase from the same period in 2004, police said. While Israelis are used to dealing with deaths in the conflict with the Palestinians, violent crime has been relatively low. But police already have been stretched thin by the need to plan security for Sharon's Gaza withdrawal plan, scheduled to begin in August, and all agree the situation likely will worsen - and crime-fighting could further suffer - as the summer goes on.
The job of evacuating some 9,000 settlers from their homes will largely fall to police. They also will have to contend with withdrawal opponents, and much of their intelligence work already is focused here. Groups of youngsters have begun burning tires and blocking highway intersections with sit-down strikes to protest the withdrawal, and police have been forced to deploy in large numbers to try to prevent the demonstrations and clear roads.
The recent series of brutal killings has set Israelis on edge. Relatives of four recent victims wrote Sharon that "mad violence" in Israel has made "everyone crazed with fear," and they posed holding pictures of their slain kin for Sunday's front page of the mass circulation daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot.
For the past week, in fact, newspapers have been filled with pictures of the dead, and radio has broadcast interviews with the relatives. Public attention focused on the killings in late May when a 15-year-old was randomly attacked and strangled while walking to a mall in the quiet city of Rehovot near Tel Aviv. A youth on a furlough from juvenile detention center, apparently high at the time from sniffing glue, is suspected in the slaying.
Then, a 3-year-old girl was killed in a drive-by shooting as part of a botched mob hit outside a Ramle prison, and an 81-year-old man was set afire by a woman who owed him money. Several teens have been stabbed to death outside nightclubs in arguments over seemingly minor issues. Last week, an alleged serial killer was arrested in connection with the random slayings of four homeless men in the northern port city of Haifa.
"We need to make a massive effort to deal with this violence," Sharon told the Cabinet session to which he summoned the police chief and the attorney general. "I do not intend for only statements and talking to emerge from this meeting." Sharon promised decisions that would "change, from the roots, the violence we face today."
Police Chief Moshe Karadi asked the government to boost police funding and scrap the planned firing of 2,000 officers.
Israeli talk show host and columnist Yair Lapid called for a "Giuliani-like figure, sour-faced and efficient who will increase significantly the number of policemen, will make penalties more severe and will amend the laws," referring to Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York who led a crackdown on crime there.
Yediot's front page headline Sunday read "Stop the next murder" above a picture of the victims' relatives. Two inside pages were devoted to pictures of the people killed this year. The relatives implored Sharon in a letter, also printed on the front page, to "give security to our children and peace of mind to the mothers." But some experts said it was too early to say whether statistics were being blown of proportion by police trying to get a bigger budget and prevent staff cuts.
"It is a complicated time for the police and they are asking for extra money," said sociologist Gideon Fishman, who heads Haifa University's Center for Youth Policy. He noted that more police would not necessarily stop random killings, saying, "You can't have a policeman in every alley or with every three people.""
Source: Gavin Rabinowitz. Sharon promises action on Israel violence. NWSource.com (5 June 2005) [FullText]
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