About 140 children will stay home on Thursday from four kindergartens in Ar'ara in the Negev, after local education officials ordered the closures because of fears of further violence. The decision was taken on Wednesday night, only hours after a local resident was shot dead near the same educational facilities.
According to the report, the kindergarten closures were ordered because the schools are physically close to the shooting scene. Local education officials decided not to open them in order to avoid putting children at risk if the deadly dispute led to retaliation in the morning.
The shooting happened Wednesday evening, when rescue teams were called to a man injured by gunfire. Magen David Adom medics found him unconscious with penetrating wounds, gave him initial treatment at the scene and evacuated him to Soroka Medical Center in critical condition, where doctors later pronounced him dead.
Police who arrived in the town searched the area and collected evidence. Their main suspicion is that the killing stems from a known criminal feud between families. The case comes about three weeks after another violent incident in Ar'ara, in which four people were shot, all with penetrating injuries, one of them seriously. Police arrested six suspects after that earlier incident, but tensions in the town appear to remain unresolved.
