“He was pale and breathing slowly,” Mr. Diwani said.
Another paramedic, Lior Zilberberg, described finding two injured people, a man and the woman, at the entrance to Tzur Yitzhak, a small community that is a short drive away from Kochav Yair. Paramedics discovered Mr. Kalomiti inside a vehicle near the neighboring community of Tzur Natan. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
A fifth man lay near the vehicle with gunshot wounds to his upper body, according to the ambulance service.
Mr. Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, arrived at the scene shortly after the shootings. “There is a group among Israeli Arabs — not all of them — but a group that hates the state, and we need to crack down on them,” he said.
Mr. Ben-Gvir, a populist who was convicted in the past on charges of inciting racism, campaigned in Israel’s 2022 national election on a promise to restore law and order. But critics say he has done little to rein in the criminal violence plaguing Israel’s Arab minority, which has claimed more than a hundred lives this year.
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, said in a social media post that Sunday’s attack was “a bloody wake up call for the profound change that must take place among Arab Israelis.”
“Hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons, including anti-tank missiles, M16 machine guns, and explosive devices, alongside rampant crime and nationalist radicalization, pose an existential threat,” he added.
Heedo Abu Laban contributed reporting.
Source:
www.nytimes.com
