Border Police officer, reservist and soldier nabbed on suspicion of attempted murder

Investigators reportedly suspect the three men, all relatives, planned shooting after brawl between officer and alleged target; judge imposes gag order on suspects’ names

By Charlie Summers

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9 June 2026, 7:34 pm

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A Border Police officer, reservist and soldier from the same family were arrested Monday in southern Israel on suspicion of attempted murder, the Department of Internal Police Investigations (DIPI) said.

The three are suspected of planning the ambush of a man in May, according to the DIPI, a State Attorney’s Office body that probes police on criminal suspicions.

The main suspect is a Border Police officer in his 20s, who had been absent from service for around a year before his arrest, the Kan public broadcaster reported.

The reservist arrested bears the high rank of colonel, the DIPI added. According to Kan, the suspected Border Police officer is the colonel’s son.

The third suspect is a conscript in his 20s, Channel 12 News reported.

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The three relatives are suspected to have planned the attempt following a fight between the Border Police officer and a man belonging to the Abu Arar family, a large Bedouin clan in southern Israel, after the two nearly got into a traffic accident.

Investigators believe that around a month and a half after the fight, the three suspects teamed up in a plot to kill the victim by shooting him in the back. The victim survived the attempt, carried out on May 2.

The suspects were brought to a closed-door hearing in the Beersheba Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, where a gag order was imposed on the case barring the publication of the suspects’ names.

The presiding judge extended the cop’s detention by another nine days and the soldiers’ detentions by another three days as investigators continued to probe the case, the DIPI said.

Uri Ben Natan, the suspects’ defense attorney, told Kan that his clients deny the suspicions, claiming that the Border Police officer — despite his prior acquaintance with the alleged target — bore no connection to the murder attempt.

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