12-Year-Old Israeli Boy Shot Dead by Friend Playing With Gun

Pesach vacation got off to a tragic start as a sleepover in Reut, Israel, ended with the death of 12-year-old Oren Mizrachi from a single gunshot wound to the head. Mizrachi and two others had been staying over at the home of another boy of the same age, whose parents were not at home at the time of the incident. At present time, police believe that around 11 a.m. the boy removed his father’s handgun from the drawer it was kept in, loaded it with a magazine and cocked it. Bragging with it, the boy apparently made a gesture that led to the gun discharging. The bullet struck Mizrachi in the head, critically wounding him.Panicked, the three boys agreed on a cover story, and the shooter told emergency services who responded to his call that a masked gunman had entered the house and shot his friend. Prior to the arrival of the paramedics the shooter returned the gun to the drawer, and the other two fled the scene.

Paramedics tried to resuscitate Mizrachi at the scene, later evacuating him to the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer where he was pronounced dead.

Police finished questioning the 12-year-old shooter in the afternoon, and took him back home in the evening to reconstruct the incident. He is presently suspected of manslaughter. His father, the owner of the firearm, was investigated on suspicion of negligent homicide.

News of Mizrachi’s death spread quickly through the small community, and family members and friends swarmed to his house. Fellow students gathered at the Maccabim-Reut campus to talk with teachers and social workers.

The young boy, who was to celebrate his bar mitzvah in two months, leaves behind two younger brothers. His mother Sigalit is the principal of a local school and his father Eyal manages a manpower firm in Yerushalayim.

{Yair Alpert-Matzav.com Israel/Ynet}