Sharp rise in right-wing attacks on Palestinians and Israeli peace and rights activists
By
Jean Shaoul
1 September 2018
Last weekend saw violent attacks on Palestinian-Israelis and Israeli peace activists. Ten people were hospitalised with cuts, lacerations, fractures, and other injuries after being attacked by Israeli Jews.
Three Palestinian-Israeli citizens were sitting on the beach at Kiryat Haim, in the northern port city of Haifa, when a young man approached them and asked if they were Arabs. Just minutes after they answered that they were, he returned with nine youths, armed with metal rods, chains, clubs and knives, and attacked them.
Yair Elalouf, a Jewish Israeli who came to their aid and called the police, said that if he and his friend hadn’t intervened, “they [the attackers] would’ve murdered them.” He said that at least 70 to 80 people witnessed the attack, but none of them intervened or called the police even though the assailants “had brutally beaten them with the clubs for 3-4 minutes, and one of the attackers used an iron chain, maybe of a motorcycle or a bike.”
The victims—Dr Muhammad Yousefeen from the Ichilov Hospital at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, a 28-year-old nurse and a 20-year-old man—said the attack was racially motivated, adding that the attackers swore at them and said, “You are Arab dogs, don’t stay here.”
They thanked Elalouf later at the police station, saying, “Without him, we wouldn’t have stayed alive” and they went to see him to thank him again. He said, “They took my phone number, wanted to invite me to Shfaram [their neighbourhood] to eat with them, and wanted to come to my house with their families. I told them they are more than welcome.”
He added, “People ask me all the time, ‘Did you know…