Police hunting for hit-and-run driver

Police suspect that 82-year-old Netanya man Honig Vasil killed after trying to stop car thief.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
crime scene (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [illustrative])
crime scene
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [illustrative])
Police are hunting for a suspect who ran over and killed an 82-year-old man in Netanya on Friday before fleeing the scene.
Honig Vasil was found under a vehicle belonging to his son by Magen David Adom paramedics on Netanya’s Lilenblum Street.
Police suspect he may have caught a car thief attempting to make off with the vehicle, and that the thief put the car in reverse and ran him over before fleeing the scene on foot.
Paramedics found the elderly man under the car on the sidewalk, and pronounced him dead after failing to revive him.
On Tuesday, police said a breakthrough occurred in an investigation into the hitand- run incident that left a 19-year-old soldier dead last Saturday near Yokne’am.
A van driver and five passengers were arrested in connection with the incident, police said, following the partial lifting of a media ban.
“Several other vehicles are being examined” to see if they were involved in the accident that killed the soldier, Amnesh Yasatzu, who was walking out of a gas station when she was struck.
Police suspect one vehicle struck Yasatzu down before three other vehicles ran over her.
Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.