A severed head was discovered Thursday morning near the entrance of a school in Basmat Tab'un, northern Israel. The victim was identified as 43-year-old Rabih Araidi, the son of former Israeli ambassador to Norway and Iceland and TV host Naim Araidi who passed away in 2015.
Authorities suspect the perpetrators cleaned the victim's head with cleaning agents before leaving it near the school to get rid of evidence. Initially, a teacher mistook the head for an object and did not realize it was human. Following the discovery, parents and teachers directed students to take alternate routes to avoid the crime scene.
Police suspect he had been kidnapped from his home in Maghar, a city in the Lower Galilee, and subsequently murdered. The remainder of his dismembered body was located in Maghar.
Araidi's murder is believed to be connected to an ongoing conflict between criminal organizations that has claimed 15 lives over the past two years. Despite the alarming number of fatalities, only two cases have resulted in arrests, while the others remain unsolved.
Among the victims were several innocent bystanders. Investigations revealed that in some instances, killers failed to reach their intended targets and instead murdered their relatives.
Following Araidi's murder, a message purportedly from "criminal organizations" circulated online, reading, "We warned you to stop your connection with the crime organization. We killed him after he began to publish threats and betrayals."
"This is a very shocking case, and it's hard to cope with such murders," one resident of Basmat Tab'un told Ynet. "I am against violence, but I would prefer to hear about a shooting rather than a dismemberment."
Since the beginning of the year, 93 people have been murdered in the Arab sector, with only 12 cases solved.