A man beat and stabbed his wife to death in their apartment in Petah Tikva late
Tuesday night, while the couple’s children, aged two and five, were in the
room.
Police said the man – who, like his wife, is an Eritrean migrant in
his 30s – tried to hang himself inside the apartment, but was stopped by his
neighbors, who called police.
Neighbors were taking care of the children
until the welfare department took their case, police added.
A very
similar incident involving an Eritrean couple took place in Ashdod on Sunday
night, during which a young husband stabbed his wife in the neck and then tried
to hang himself from a tree outside the apartment.
The man was saved by a
passerby, and both he and his wife recovered in the hospital.
Two weeks
beforehand, an Eritrean migrant stabbed his wife in the neck, killing her, in
their apartment on Solomon Street near the old central bus station in Tel
Aviv.
The man fled the scene but was arrested a few days
later.
Tuesday night’s killing took place in the same building, at 1 Bar
Kochba Street, where earlier in the day police raided an illegal casino. The two
incidents were not related, police said.
On Wednesday, Eilat police
reported that a 49-year-old local man had been arrested on suspicion of
murdering his wife in a fit of rage in their apartment overnight.
Eilat
Police spokesman Ch.- Insp. Lior Ben-Simon said the suspect said that he woke up
in the middle of the night and beat his girlfriend in the head repeatedly with
his fists, before returning to sleep. In the morning, he said, he awoke to find
her lying on the kitchen floor showing no signs of life.
The couple had
lived together for 14 years and although police had no record of any criminal
complaint about domestic violence from the couple, the boyfriend did say that
for years they had fought about his dissatisfaction with her performance of
household duties, Ben-Simon said.