A 67-year-old man was shot dead Tuesday morning on Route 70 near Kabul Junction in the western Galilee, in what police described as a criminal-background shooting, amid reports that he was the father of a state witness in a major organized crime corruption case.
The killing, on one of the main roads in the area, as the man was reportedly on his way to work, has renewed concern over the ability of law enforcement authorities to protect not only witnesses who cooperate with police, but also their families.
Magen David Adom said it received the report at 6:28 a.m. and found the man unconscious, without a pulse or breathing, suffering from penetrating wounds. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.
Police said they opened an investigation and began searching for suspects. They described the background as criminal.
Later Tuesday, the Acre Magistrate’s Court issued a 30-day gag order on the investigation. The order bars publication of all details from the investigation, including the victim’s identity. The victim is therefore not named in this report.
Media reports specified him as the father of a state witness connected to a large corruption and organized crime case in northern Israel. Police had not publicly confirmed that the reported family connection was the motive for the shooting.
The reported link has particular significance because the state witness’s family had already faced a series of alleged threats and attacks after he began cooperating with investigators.
KAN reported that, in January, a suspect was arrested on suspicion of breaking into the witness’s home and delivering a threatening message to his family. A vehicle belonging to the family was later set on fire, according to the report, while the witness was confronting suspects in the investigation. An explosive device then detonated at the witness’s home.
Similar instance occured in Nazareth earlier this year
In April, a 61-year-old man who was a relative of another key prosecution witness in the same case was shot dead outside his home in Nazareth. Police said at the time that the background to that shooting was criminal and that the circumstances were under investigation.
The state witness has been publicly linked to a high-profile investigation into alleged corruption involving a northern municipality and an organized crime group. The case led earlier this year to indictments against former municipal officials and alleged crime-group figures. Those proceedings remain pending, and the defendants are presumed innocent.
The Abraham Initiatives, a nonprofit organization that tracks crime- and violence-related killings in the Arab sector, said Tuesday’s shooting raised difficult questions about the protection provided to state witnesses and their relatives.
State witnesses essential tool to dismantle crime groups, Arab-Israeli crime watchdog says
The group said state witnesses are an essential tool in efforts to dismantle crime groups, but that cooperation with law enforcement may become far harder to secure if witnesses and their families fear retaliation.
The organization said 135 Arab citizens and residents had been killed in crime- and violence-related circumstances since the start of 2026. Of those, it said, 120 were shot dead. The total compares with 124 victims during the equivalent period last year, according to the group’s data.