Man murders wife, attempts suicide in south Tel Aviv

The man is in critical condition in Ichilov Hospital; neither were known to police, no history of domestic violence.

By BEN HARTMAN
MDA on the scene 370 (photo credit: Courtesy MDA)
MDA on the scene 370
(photo credit: Courtesy MDA)
A man stabbed his wife to death and then tried to take his own life Tuesday morning in south Tel Aviv, police and paramedics said.
The man, who police described as a 30-year-old Eritrean who has lived in Israel for a year, stabbed his wife in the upper body at their apartment on Shtulim Street in the Argazim neighborhood before stabbing himself in the chest and passing out.
The woman, who police said had lived in Israel for two years, was pronounced dead at the scene. The couple had no children and police said that they never received any complaints of domestic violence about them in the past.
Magen David Adom paramedic Uri Ohayon said that shortly after receiving the call at 7:38 a.m. he found two people lying on the floor with stab wounds. The woman was dead, while the man was rushed to Ichilov Hospital at the city’s Sourasky Medical Center, where was in serious condition.
On Tuesday morning, there was a police crime scene van outside the couple's apartment, which is upstairs from a auto mechanic's garage and next to a playground and a public park in the ramshackle neighborhood of tin houses and dirt alleyways.
The owner of the garage, a middle-aged Israeli man, refused to talk and walked behind the police tape, slamming the garage gate closed as crime scene investigators in white forensic suits worked the murder scene upstairs.
A neighbor living next door, Oded, said he heard screams about 7:30 in the morning and came outside to see an African man in the street pointing to the upstairs apartment and drawing a finger across his neck, signing that someone had been murdered. Oded said his sister then called police, and within minutes police and cameramen descended on the neighborhood.
He added that there hadn’t been any previous trouble with the couple, who had moved into the apartment a couple of months ago.