Three men have been arrested by Tel Aviv police in connection to repeated attempts to bomb a supermarket in the centre of the city.
The first suspect was arrested on July 1 and remains in custody, while the other two were arrested on Sunday morning (July 14). The three men are suspected of being contracted by a third party to torch and, in a second incident, bomb the store.
Police would not comment on who the third party criminal figure is, adding that the investigation is still ongoing.
The two suspects arrested on Sunday, 26-year-old Eliran Vaknin of Hadera and Efraim Jerbi, 28, of Kfar Yonah, were brought to the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court on Sunday night, where they were remanded in custody until Thursday. During the court hearing police said they have forensic evidence taken both from the scene and the homes of the two suspects that implicates them in the crime.
Disaster was narrowly averted this March when a worker doing renovation at the central Tel Aviv branch of Tiv Ta’am discovered a suspicious package in the supermarket’s storage room. Police attended the scene, cordoning off a wide span of the city centre stretching for several blocks in each direction. Police managed to disarm the bomb and took it in for a forensic examination, which turned up fingerprints belonging to the suspect arrested at the beginning of July.
The discovery of the bomb in March came only two weeks after the supermarket was partially torched, after arsonists used the store’s ventilation system to filter gasoline and fumes into the store. The store caught fire around 3 a.m., causing superficial injury to an employee and causing serious damage to the store. That incident followed at least one more suspicious arson attempt at the store in the months previous.
The suspects could potentially face charges of conspiracy to commit a crime, illegal possession of firearms and illegal use of an explosive device.
The Tiv Ta’am chain of over 30 stores is notable in Israel for stocking non-kosher products, including shellfish and pork, and for trading on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath.
