Five family members were killed in a mass shooting Wednesday in an Arab town in northern Israel, police and advocates said, the latest victims of a recent surge of gun violence within the country’s Arab communities. Another Arab citizen of Israel was killed in a separate shooting earlier Wednesday.

Israeli police said that three men and two women were shot and killed at a house in the northern Bedouin town of Basmat Tab’un. They said they were treating the incident as criminal and hunting down suspected assailants. Israeli medics said that a sixth man was shot and wounded in the rampage.

The Abraham Initiatives, a Jewish-Arab advocacy and monitoring group in Israel, identified the victims as an Arab couple and their three children.

The police declined to provide further details on the shooting or the victims due to the ongoing investigation, which they said involved several national units “diligently pursuing all leads using advanced technological resources.” Previous such shootings have involved disputes between organized crime families.

Five family members were killed in a mass shooting Wednesday in an Arab town in northern Israel, police and advocates said, the latest victims of a recent surge of gun violence within the country’s Arab communities. Another Arab citizen of Israel was killed in a separate shooting earlier Wednesday.

Israeli police said that three men and two women were shot and killed at a house in the northern Bedouin town of Basmat Tab’un. They said they were treating the incident as criminal and hunting down suspected assailants. Israeli medics said that a sixth man was shot and wounded in the rampage.

The Abraham Initiatives, a Jewish-Arab advocacy and monitoring group in Israel, identified the victims as an Arab couple and their three children.

The police declined to provide further details on the shooting or the victims due to the ongoing investigation, which they said involved several national units “diligently pursuing all leads using advanced technological resources.” Previous such shootings have involved disputes between organized crime families.

Violence in Israel’s Arab sector has intensified, with 188 people killed this year, according to the Abraham Initiatives — more than double the number of such homicides for similar periods in recent years. Israel’s Palestinian Arab minority makes up roughly a fifth of Israel’s population.

(AP)