As the moped slowed down next to Fouad Mari’s shop in northern Israel, one of his drivers pulled a pistol from his belt and took aim.
Fouad rushed into the shop when a stray bullet struck a container of plastic water bottles and spilled liquid on the sidewalks.
But it wasn’t enough.
“They shot him in the legs, then they came back and shot him again,” Fouad’s mother Tova Mari told the Telegraph as she played CCTV footage of the murder on her phone.
Fouad, 26, was the latest victim of a brutal wave of crime that raged through Israel’s Arab communities, killing more than 90 people this year.
The murders often focus on personal feuds and disputes over protection rackets and drug trafficking in a growing underworld that has terrorized Arab citizens of Israel.
Israel has repeatedly been accused of turning a blind eye to the crime wave, as it predominantly affects the country’s Arab minority.
But in recent months the sheer volume of murders and pressure from an Arab-Israeli party within the government have forced Naftali Bennett, the prime minister, to act.
Mr. Bennett has admitted that “years of neglect” caused the problem to spiral out of control. In response, he recently announced plans for a special crime unit and 1,100 more police officers to protect Arab communities.
