Injured gardener; Photo credit: Courtesy of the photographer
Thursday, June 17, 2021, 10:58 In early May, before Operation Guardian of the Walls, N., a Jewish resident of Lod, was attacked while installing synthetic grass with a coworker on Struma Street in the city. Two Arabs approached him and threatened to murder him. As N. tried to determine the reason for the threat, they assaulted him and his coworker with tools and tried to stab them with a knife.
N. fought the terrorists with his bare hands and succeeded in distancing himself from them. He immediately called the police and urgently requested a police car. However the police did not arrive promptly. When the police had not yet arrived after approximately 15 minutes, the assailants returned, armed with knives and a belt with a piece of metal attached to one end. They resumed attacking N.
During the attack, one of the assailants attempted to slit N.’s throat with a box cutter. Fortunately the locking mechanism on the knife was faulty, and N. was “only” injured in the back of his neck, but close to his throat. Again N. struggled with the assailants and after several minutes succeeded in repelling them. The assailants backed off and pelted N. and his coworker with large rocks. One of the rocks hit N. and broke his leg.
The police arrived half an hour later, after the assailants had already fled, and took testimony from N. and his coworker. Since the attack N. has suffered from severe pains in his leg and has required several operations. Despite the time that has elapsed, no report of detained or indicted suspects has been received.
Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher sent an urgent letter to the Lod Police demanding the immediate detention of the assailants: “This was a serious attack on and injury of a man only because he is a Jew. This incident preceded the major riots in Lod by several days, but there is no doubt that it is part of the rising wave of antisemitism. Every effort must be made to detain the assailants and prosecute them to the full extent of the law.”