Police: American raped after hitching ride in Eilat

Police arrest 15-year-old supermarket delivery boy suspected of raping tourist, who volunteers at a kibbutz in the South.

By BEN HARTMAN
Rape [illustration] 370 (photo credit: Ingimage)
Rape [illustration] 370
(photo credit: Ingimage)
An American tourist volunteering on a kibbutz was raped in Eilat on Thursday night after she was picked up by two men at a hitchhiking spot in the city, Eilat Police reported Saturday evening.
The suspects, a 15-year-old and a 25-year-old, were arrested by police on Friday morning, after they set up an ambush at a supermarket in Eilat where both suspects work.
Insp. Lior Ben-Simon of the Eilat sub-district said Saturday that the older suspect, a Beersheba resident, was questioned but police determined that he was not actually involved in the rape and he was released.
The victim, a 29-year-old tourist volunteering at one of the kibbutzim in the Hevel Eilot region, had gone out with friends in Eilat on Thursday night. Ben-Simon said the woman, who had been drinking, decided to hitch a ride back to the kibbutz by herself in the late hours of the night, and was picked up by the two suspects at a hitchhiking spot in the center of town.
Ben-Simon said that shortly after the two started driving her toward the kibbutz they took her to a storage room at a building in the city, where they told her to wait while they ran some errands, and that afterward they would take her to the kibbutz. A few minutes later the teenager returned and raped the girl before leaving, Ben-Simon said.
The tourist then took the opportunity to flee, hailing down a taxi driver who called police.
Hours later, police were able to figure out that the car the two suspects were driving was a delivery truck for the supermarket, and they set up an stakeout at the business. When the suspects arrived for work, police arrested them on the spot.
On Saturday night, the minor will be taken for a remand extension at the Eilat Magistrate’s court. Ben-Simon said that the youth, an Eilat native, does not have any violent arrests or any sort of serious juvenile record.