{"id":520472,"date":"2026-07-01T20:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T20:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/520472\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T20:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T20:17:08","slug":"third-arson-attack-on-ramat-gan-cafe-that-opened-on-shabbat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/520472\/","title":{"rendered":"Third arson attack on Ramat Gan cafe that opened on Shabbat"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Ramat Gan<\/a> cafe was set on fire for the third time overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday, citing footage showing masked suspects arriving at the scene, igniting the business, and fleeing.<\/p>\n

Police opened an investigation into the suspected arson, with the apparent motive being the cafe\u2019s decision to remain open on Saturdays.<\/p>\n

The fire at Bandita Cafe was reported at 2:43 a.m., according to the report. The owner, identified only as Shahaf, said she spent the morning at the police<\/a> station filing another complaint after what she described as repeated attacks on her business.<\/p>\n

Shahaf told Walla that she later understood that comments directed at her before the arsons should have been treated as warnings. She said passersby had told her that businesses that open on Shabbat \u201csimply burn,\u201d but that she did not initially attach importance to the remarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese were not threats, they were promises,\u201d she said. Despite the attacks, she said she would not change the cafe\u2019s operating policy and would continue opening on Saturdays.<\/p>\n

Ramat Gan Mayor Carmel Shama-Hacohen condemned the arson<\/a> and said the municipality would support the cafe financially and publicly. He said the city would order products from the business for weekend events and would work to expand the number of cafes and entertainment venues operating on weekends.<\/p>\n

Shama-Hacohen described the incident as a hate crime and said it was aimed not only at the business, but at the character of Ramat Gan.<\/p>\n

\u201cRamat Gan is free, and Ramat Gan is liberal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The incident follows a previous arson at the same cafe<\/a> in May, after the owner reportedly received threats over the cafe\u2019s Saturday opening. The latest attack comes amid a broader public debate in Israel over Shabbat commerce, transportation, and municipalities’ authority to determine local policy.<\/p>\n

No suspects had been located at the time of publication, and the police investigation was ongoing.<\/p>\n

For the cafe owner, the third arson has turned the business into a test case over whether a legal business can operate on Shabbat without becoming a target.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Ramat Gan cafe was set on fire for the third time overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday, citing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23131,737,85,46,43,102,80904,124874],"class_list":["post-520472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-arson","tag-crime","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-police","tag-ramat-gan","tag-shabbat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}