Mohammed Halabi was born around 1957 and was a Palestinian resident of the Gaza Strip, living in or near Khan Yunis at the time of his arrest. Public records concerning his early life, education, and family background are limited. However, by the late 1980s, Halabi was known to Israeli authorities as a confidential informant working with Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency.

His role as an informant placed him in a complex and dangerous position amid heightened political violence during the First Intifada, a period marked by unrest, surveillance, and counterintelligence operations between Israeli authorities and Palestinian militant groups. Halabi’s movements between Gaza and Israel were reportedly facilitated by his status as a security collaborator.

There is no verified public record of Halabi having a criminal history prior to the murders, nor any indication that he had previously committed violent offenses on a similar scale. His association with security services and his later confession would become central to the legal proceedings that followed the killings.

Between 18 and 19 October 1989, seven civilians were murdered in a series of killings that took place in an apartment in Tel Aviv and in nearby Jaffa. The victims consisted of five women and two men, including three Jewish women, two Arab women, one Jewish man, and one Arab man.

All victims were strangled to death using a nylon rope. Israeli police later stated that the murders were carried out over a short period of time, with the victims killed 24 to 48 hours before their bodies were discovered on 20 October 1989. Investigators described the crime scene as unusually violent and methodical.

According to contemporaneous reporting, the victims were individuals living on the margins of society, including prostitutes, drug users, and petty criminals. The killings were widely described in the media as Israel’s worst multiple murder case up to that point, due to both the number of victims and the brutality of the crimes.

Following a month-long investigation, Israeli authorities arrested Mohammed Halabi on 20 November 1989 at his home in Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. During police interrogation, Halabi confessed to all seven murders. He claimed that he acted under orders from the Palestinian resistance movement, stating that the victims included individuals he believed were collaborators or morally corrupt.

Despite Halabi’s confession, Israeli police and prosecutors publicly stated that they did not accept his political explanation for the murders. Law enforcement officials asserted that the killings were more likely the result of a personal dispute or criminal motive, unrelated to organized militant directives.

Mohammed Halabi was tried in the Tel Aviv District Court, where prosecutors presented forensic evidence, witness testimony, and Halabi’s confession. The court rejected the argument that the murders were politically sanctioned acts and ruled that Halabi bore full criminal responsibility for the killings.

On 25 January 1990, Halabi was convicted of seven counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment for the murders, with an additional 40 years in prison for the attempted killings.

The sentence reflected the court’s view of the crimes as exceptionally severe, citing the number of victims, the method of killing, and the vulnerability of those targeted. No successful appeals, sentence reductions, or parole outcomes have been publicly documented.