Suspects allegedly carried out a botched motorcycle drive-by shooting attack targeting a criminal rival.
By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Police arrested two men in their 20s on Monday for allegedly carrying out a motorcycle drive-by shooting attack targeting a criminal rival in Ramle, but which resulted in the death of a 16-year-old yeshiva student who was stuck in the head by a stray bullet.
Yiftah Mor Yosef was sitting on a public bench next to 36-year-old underworld figure Einav Cohen - the intended target - and sustained a gunshot wound to the head during the August 6 shooting.
Doctors at the Assaf Harofe Hospital in Tzrifin battled to save Yosef's life for several hours, but he succumbed to his wounds in the early hours of the following morning.
Ch.-Supt. Micha Levine, head of the homicide department of the Central District's Central Unit, told the Jerusalem Post that the suspects were residents of central Israel. He added that a court-imposed media gag order prevented him from discussing further details of the investigation.
The two men, believed to belong to a local crime ring, are suspected of forming a two-man assassination unit, with one man driving the motorcycle and a second acting as gunman.
The shooting is thought to be part of an ongoing crime war over control of drugs and money in the area.
The suspects will be brought to a Ramle Magistrate's Court on Tuesday morning for a remand hearing.
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