Shay Pesso, z’l, a 30-year-old Israeli from Haifa, was shot to death earlier this week in the Columbian city of Medellín while waiting outside the local Chabad house, where he was waiting for the Chabad shaliach to bring him a menorah for Chanukah.

Witnesses said that as Pesso was waiting outside the Chabad house next to his car, two motorcycles pulled up next to him and one motorcycle driver pulled out a gun and shot Pesso ten times from point-blank range. Pesso passed away in the hospital shortly later.

According to a Channel 12 News report, Pesso’s friends think that Israeli criminals living in Medellín are behind the murder. “There are people who were jealous of Shay’s success,” a friend said. “He ran a very successful cosmetic dental clinic in the city. The murder wasn’t committed by Columbian criminals – that’s not the way they operate.”

Shay’s sister, Zohar Ben-Sassoon, said that Shay has been living in South America for a number of years. “His business was there. Contrary to what people are saying, he wasn’t involved in crime. At age 17, he joined my uncles in Panama and went into business.  We don’t know how this happened.”

According to Israeli media reports, this isn’t the first time that an Israeli was murdered in Medellín. An Israeli was murdered there in February 2020, and similar incidents have occurred prior to that.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)