Two young women were raped on Sunday morning near Ramat Yishai, some 25
kilometers northeast of Haifa.
The women were out with their boyfriends,
but two other men arrived and chased the boyfriends away before proceeding with
the rape.
Police arrested one suspect, a man in his 20s from the village
of Manshaya Zabada, near the forest in the Jezreel Valley where the incident
occurred. Forces are conducting searches for the second suspect.
News of
the rape comes amid a rash of highly publicized violent crimes in recent weeks.
Last week, Police Insp.-Gen. Yochanan Danino said that although the crime rate
had dropped significantly, the public did not feel safe.
Speaking at a
Knesset Interior Committee discussion on crime, Danino said that the war on
violent crime represented “a strategic issue no less important than the Iranian
threat” for Israel.
“Citizens can trust that the police will do
everything in their power to bring the feeling of security back and to fight
violence effectively,” he vowed.
Danino said that as part of efforts to
minimize crime, he had taken a number of measures, including deploying “many
more cops on the street.”
Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this
report.