Haifa: Chevra Kadisha Director Shot to Death

Benny Hesse, director of the Ashkenazi Chevra Kadisha in Haifa, was shot to death outside his home on Rechov Sinaitoday. According to the police, an assassin stalked Hesse, 67, and shot him several times as his wife stood beside him.

“She cried ‘help, help, call the police’,” one of the neighbors related. “He couldn’t scream anymore.” His death was pronounced a short time after the incident.

Magen David Adom teams arrived at the scene of the shooting where they immediately began to administer CPR. “We found an adult man lying on the floor suffering from a number of bullet wounds in the upper half of his body,” a paramedic told Ynet. “We administered CPR for nearly 40 minutes but eventually, the doctor called the time of death.”

Haifa’s community was in shock when news of the murder was revealed. People who worked with the victim refused to believe the news and couldn’t imagine why he would be murdered. And yet, this isn’t the first time Hesse was attacked. A few years ago anonymous perpetrators threw acid at him.

A large number of Police forces were present at the scene, including regional police commander Shimon Koren. The police have yet to arrest any suspects.

Despite the previous incident, police said as far as they knew Hesse was not being threatened in the past few years.

All leads are being checked at the moment, police said and added that the background to the act was apparently criminal in nature. “At this stage we do not know how the murderer left the scene,” a senior Haifa police official said.

{Ynet/Matzav.com}