Fighting crime in Haifa: Sealing buildings where drug activity takes place ◄ Watch

Step up in the fight against crime in Hadar and nearby areas: Haifa Municipality has begun sealing off buildings where drug activity takes place • Paid police officers and municipal supervision teams will increase patrol and enforcement activities in the area.

Fighting crime in Haifa: Sealing buildings where drug activity takes place ► Watch

As part of the fight against crime in the Hadar neighborhood and nearby areas (including Wadi Salib and Halisa), the Haifa Municipality has begun an unprecedented process, in which buildings where drug sales are conducted will be sealed, after evidence is received from the Israel Police that such transactions were indeed carried out there.

This activity recently received the green light from the municipality's legal advisory department, and this morning a building on Ma'ale Ha'Shu'ar Street was sealed off, where drug use and trafficking activities were taking place, which were discovered by Haifa municipality inspectors during a patrol they conducted last night.

At the same time, and in order to increase security and the feeling of security in various areas of the Hadar neighborhood and in particular in the Talpiot market, the municipality will hire foot and motorcycle patrol services from the Haifa Police Station in the form of "paid police officers", so that they will operate together with the municipal inspectors. The activity is expected to begin in the coming days, and its goal is to maintain public order, provide enforcement and criminal treatment of offenders, and provide an integrated and complementary response to enforcement. This is alongside a welfare program that the municipality will operate with disadvantaged populations in the area.

Another step that the municipality will begin to take in Hadar is to enforce by all means the illegal splitting of apartments – which are becoming brothels and drug sales centers – including submitting orders to demolish those buildings.

David Luria was recently appointed as the project manager for the Hadar region, and he is also expected to focus on addressing crime hotspots in the neighborhood.

Director of the Municipal Enforcement Department at the Haifa Municipality, Ilan Hodada:

Following information we received about this building, a patrol was conducted last night by inspectors from the municipality's General Inspection Department, and 26 packets suspected of being heroin packets were seized here. The packets were removed from the wall, and we found them after we searched the building. The mayor and the municipality's CEO instructed us to increase the sense of security in the city in general, and in the Talpiot and Wadi Salib markets in particular. This is reflected in increased patrols, locating abandoned buildings, preventing crime, and more. We will operate in the entire Talpiot and Wadi Salib markets, and we will do everything to eradicate crime and the phenomena of prostitution, drug trafficking, and use, and to increase the security and sense of security of the residents.