Crime figure killed in Haifa car blast, Arab community’s 7th fatality in 3 days

Rabee Abu Haikal, a suspect in a 2023 double murder, targeted in city’s Kiryat Haim neighborhood as violence crisis persists

A crime figure was killed Tuesday in a car explosion in Haifa, officials and Hebrew media reported, the seventh homicide victim in the Arab community in three days.

Rabee Abu Haikal, 50, was extracted from the flaming vehicle in the northern Kiryat Haim neighborhood, but medics pronounced him dead at the scene.

Police initially said officers were at the scene and investigating whether the explosion was an accident or a targeted bombing, but later said it was likely an underworld assassination.

An eyewitness told the Ynet news site that when the car exploded behind his vehicle, “I felt as if a missile landed next to me.”

He said there were “several booms, it was a crazy explosion,” adding that numerous families with children had been close by and fortunately weren’t harmed.

Originally from Umm al-Fahm and living in Haifa, Abu Haikal was linked to the Hariri crime gang and had a long criminal record, including being suspected in the 2023 double murder of two brothers in Nazareth.

The incident follows the killings of six people in shootings and car bombings across Israel on Sunday and Monday, including an explosion in Jaffa that also wounded a six-year-old boy who was in the vehicle as his father was killed.

The deaths are attributed to gangland killings and family disputes. Tuesday’s shooting took the Arab community’s death toll this year to at least 143, according to the Abraham Initiatives watchdog.

That compares with 120 people during the same period last year, which itself marked the deadliest year for Arab society on record, with 252 Arab citizens killed, as a years-long crisis of violent crime beset the minority.

At the current rate, 2026 will surpass that record.

Homicides in Arab society soared to 244 in 2023 — more than double the previous year — and have since stayed high, with many blaming far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir for inaction while in office.

Commenting on the spiking wave of deadly violence, a senior police official described the situation to the Haaretz daily as a “total collapse of the system,” placing the lion’s share of blame on Ben Gvir and his Police Commissioner Danny Levy.