Israeli youths being inducted into criminal organizations at increasing rate - report

"For an expensive night at a club and a hotel stay with all the luxuries, there are boys today who will be willing to cooperate and do whatever is required of them," one figure said.

Minors in Israel are being lured into criminal activities, recruited into gangs, and arrested or detained by police at an increasing rate, N12 News reported on Thursday.

"For an expensive night at a club and a hotel stay with all the luxuries, there are boys today who will be willing to cooperate and do whatever is required of them," one figure close to criminal organizations told N12.

"There are teenagers who are really excited to be close to well-known figures in criminal organizations. They want to be there. For them, being part of a criminal organization gives you a feeling that you belong to something, that you have their back, that you are no longer just a kid from the neighborhood."

According to N12, detention of minors has risen by approximately 23% each year, while indictments have risen by around 27%.

Police officers speaking to N12 said that, in many cases, adult gang members intentionally take advantage of minors' willingness to commit crimes for relatively little reward.

"Restaurants, a few thousand shekels, entertainment, vacation. There are those who would be willing to kill for a vacation in Eilat."

The advantage of taking on young gang members

This is extremely beneficial for the adult gang members, an investigator said. Younger gang members are less likely to be recognized by police, and can more easily carry out gang activity without attracting attention. If the operation goes south, the children are the ones who get caught most often, while the adults are left in the background, relatively free of police hassle.

Investigators told N12 how minors have become more aware of interrogation procedures and more difficult to get answers from.

"There used to be a perception that you would stop a child, separate him from his friends, and he would panic and tell everything," they described. "Today you can find yourself with several 14- or 15-year-old boys who know exactly what happened, and they all remain silent or tell you almost the same thing: 'I don't know, I didn't see, I didn't hear.'"

'Sophistication, silence, and lack of cooperation'

"You see a middle school student in front of you, but sometimes it feels like you are sitting in front of the head of a criminal organization," a senior investigator told N12. "The level of sophistication, the silence, the lack of cooperation. He knows what not to say; he knows not to bring his friends into the incident. He knows when to shut up. Sometimes you talk to him about a shocking act, and there is no mercy, no conscience. He doesn't even seem to understand what he did or why you are shocked by him."

Police noted that they came up against these issues while investigating the murder of 19-year-old Benayahu Razi, who was stabbed to death in a Jerusalem Airbnb in July. As a result of the investigation, two young adults and four minors aged approximately 15 to 17 were charged with murder and aggravated assault.