Burglar Roms Tel Aviv Apartment While Resident Sleeps, Sparking Fear
A young Tel Aviv woman's home was burglarized while she slept in her ground-floor apartment, leaving her deeply shaken and questioning her personal safety. The suspect was arrested following a string of thefts.
The sense of security of Yarden, a young woman living in a ground-floor apartment in central Tel Aviv, was completely shattered after she discovered that while she was sleeping in her bed, a burglar roamed freely through her home, rummaged through closets and bags, and stole her belongings. Since the incident, she has been careful to close the shutters every time she leaves the house and struggles to fall asleep at night. "I felt unprotected, unsafe," she told Israel Hayom.
The incident took place about a week ago, around 10:00 PM, at her apartment on Karlebach Street in Tel Aviv. According to the indictment filed against 26-year-old Muhammad Mansour from East Jerusalem, he reached the ground-floor apartment through an adjacent building, climbed over the yard fence, and managed to open a locked glass door.
A Break-In While Asleep
Once inside, he began rummaging through bags, closets, and drawers in the kitchen, living room, and another bedroom, leaving behind a mess and even smashing a glass in the kitchen. All this happened while Yarden was sleeping in her room, unaware of what was taking place just meters away from her.
"I usually go to sleep around ten or eleven at night, but that evening I went to sleep particularly early," she said. "After about 20 minutes in my room with the door closed, he was already in the apartment. I didn't feel him at all, and that's the whole point. In hindsight, I realized I heard some noise and was startled. He opened the glass cabinet, a cup fell and broke. I was sure the noise came from the floor upstairs. I was startled for a second, just closed my eyes, and went back to sleep."
Only later did Yarden realize how close she had come to encountering the burglar inside her home. "I probably heard him, but didn't understand what I was hearing. It's a good thing that's what I thought, because if I had confronted him or seen him, it would have been a completely different kind of trauma," she said.
From the Apartment to a Fast Food Joint
According to the indictment, Mansour stole an Apple mobile phone worth about 4,000 shekels, a credit card, a hat, a tank top, and pants from the apartment. About an hour later, he arrived at the "Sudoch" business on HaMasger Street in Tel Aviv and made two purchases using Yarden's credit card, amounting to 115 and 35 shekels.
"They stole my work phone, my credit card, my partner's clothes, and my hat," she said. As part of the investigation, she was shown security camera footage from the business, where she identified her phone, as well as the hat and tank top stolen from the apartment.
Yarden stated that following the incident, she viewed CCTV footage from the building's area with the police. According to her, the management company told her the suspect had previously fled from the nearby mall area. "I understood in hindsight from the management company, when we went with the police to view cameras, that this person had fled from the mall. They told me they tried to catch him, and he fled through the parking lot, went up to my building, and from there entered the garden from the outside."
Shaken Sense of Security
Beyond the stolen property, the significant blow for Yarden has been her sense of personal security. "I sleep worse since then. Even though the shutters are closed, this thought is constantly in my head," she said. "When I go shopping now, I close the shutters. It's not something I ever did before. Even after they fix the doors, I now realize these glass doors, the storefronts, are not heavy-duty security. It's a feeling that undermines security in general."
Following the break-in, she began exploring options to secure the rented apartment. "I am considering installing cameras here and various devices that might beep when doors open. I'm checking out various things," she said. Her landlord also recommended that she make sure to close the shutters.
Police officers from the Lev Tel Aviv station arrested Mansour the day after the break-in. During his interrogation, he provided various versions regarding the circumstances of his entry into the apartment. Initially, he claimed he did not intend to break in, but was fleeing people chasing him and entered the apartment by mistake. Later, he claimed he jumped the fence, reached the garden, and entered a dark house.
In one of his interrogations, Mansour admitted to taking a mobile phone and credit card from the apartment and exchanging the phone for drugs. He also admitted to making two purchases with the credit card. However, in another interrogation, he denied entering the apartment or stealing property from it.
The indictment against him also includes another incident that occurred three days earlier at the storage room of the "Malgo & Malbar" restaurant on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. According to the charge, Mansour cut the locks off the storage room, went inside, rummaged through property, ate sour cream and pizzas from the fridge, and took eight bottles of alcohol.
Following the storage room incident, Mansour was arrested and released under conditions on October 11. Two days later, according to the indictment, he broke into Yarden's apartment.
In the request to detain him until the end of proceedings, police prosecution argued that his dangerousness is significant, partly because he allegedly broke into a residential apartment in the evening while the owner was inside. Mansour's detention was extended by two weeks, after which a hearing is expected on the police request to hold him until legal proceedings conclude.
