On Sunday, October 8, information about the arrest of two residents of the Palestinian village of Kabatiya on suspicion of involvement in the murder of 69-year-old Reuven Schmerling, a resident of the Elkana settlement, was released for publication.
Representatives of the General Security Service (SHABAK), which is investigating with the police the circumstances of Schmerling’s death, said everything indicated that the murder was committed on nationalist grounds.
It is known that after the murder of an Israeli, the terrorists reached Jenin, where they surrendered to the hands of the Palestinian police. However, after a few hours they were free again. Israeli security officials detained the suspects on the night of 7 October.
Most of the details of the investigation are still banned from publication.
On Wednesday, October 4, Reuven Schmerling’s son found his father’s body in a family-owned coal warehouse in an industrial zone in Kafr Qasem.
The relatives of the victim were initially convinced that it was a crime motivated by ethnic hatred and argued that Reuven Schmerling was killed for being a Jew and a settler.
Soon after the murder, investigators from the General Security Service (SHABAK) joined the investigation, which usually happens when there are suspicions that the crime was a terrorist attack.
At the first stages of the investigation, the version was tested, according to which the murder was the result of a financial conflict that broke out between Schmerling and the Arab workers. At the close of Shabbat, a message was published stating that the information obtained during the investigation indicated that it was, by all accounts, a terrorist attack.
On Friday afternoon, the funeral of Reuven Schmerling took place at the cemetery in the settlement of Elkana. More than a thousand people came to say goodbye to him. Reuven Schmerling was killed the day before his 70th birthday. He is survived by four children and 19 grandchildren.
