Fragmentation grenade thrown in Hadera; police checking if it targeted a Japanika branch

A fragmentation grenade was thrown this morning at a business in Hadera, and police are checking whether it was a branch of the Japanika chain that is still under construction. No injuries were reported. The background is criminal, and the circumstances are under investigation. The incident joins a wave of attacks against the chain's branches, amid a conflict between crime organizations.

A fragmentation grenade was thrown this morning (Sunday) at a business in Hadera, and police are checking whether it was a branch of the Asian food chain Japanika, which is still under construction. No injuries were reported in the incident. Police said that officers from the Hadera station and bomb disposal experts arrived at the scene and began investigative actions and collecting evidence, and that the background to the incident is criminal and its circumstances are under investigation. The grenade was thrown at around 4:20 a.m. toward the commercial part of the new residential complex of Aura on Herbert Samuel Street in Hadera. The complex is mostly occupied, but the businesses have not yet opened and are still under construction. In the northwestern part, damage was caused to a store under construction that has signs of the Japanika chain. About a year ago, a fragmentation grenade was thrown at the same complex, and then the assessment was that it was a dispute between the project's development contractors. Police then arrested several suspects, but all were released and not indicted. The incident occurs against the background of a wave of attacks against branches of the Japanika chain, owned by businessman and Beitar Jerusalem owner Barak Abramov. Over several days, grenades were thrown, a pipe bomb was activated, and gunfire was carried out at the chain's branches in Netanya, Afula, Herzliya, Givatayim, Kiryat Ono, and Ramat Gan, with no injuries but with property damage. Police are investigating the suspicion that the attacks are part of an escalation in the conflict between the crime organizations Musli and Jarushi. According to sources familiar with the details, Abramov, who is not a suspect in the affair, is currently perceived as identified with elements in the Jarushi family, and therefore the chain's branches have become, according to the suspicion, targets for elements identified with the Musli organization. Behind the conflict, according to assessments, is a dispute over tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies.