Please click here for a list of posts relating to cases in which Honenu provided legal counsel to victims of antisemitic attacks in Jerusalem.
Tuesday, March 8, 2022, 17:56 Recently, the Israel Police closed the investigative case of an assault without indicting any suspects, despite documentation of the incident. Following an appeal by Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher, the case will be reexamined.
The assault occurred during the summer of 2021. A 16-year-old Jewish youth arrived with his friends at the Sha’ar Shechem (Damascus Gate) Plaza in Jerusalem carrying an Israeli flag. As they stood in the plaza, an Arab woman came and grabbed the flag. Then more Arabs came and beat the youth and his friends.
Border policemen who were at the site removed the Arab woman, but she returned a short time later with pepper spray and sprayed the Jewish youths. The youths understood that they would not be able to continue to the Western Wall and tried to return to the light rail station. But then a mob of Arabs attacked them and spilled boiling tea on them. The youths recorded the entire incident. The assailants also recorded the incident and posted video clips on the TikTok social network.
On the morning after the incident, the youth who had been carrying the flag filed a complaint with the police against the assailants and submitted the video clip that he had recorded. To his shock, he recently discovered that the case had been closed without the assailants standing trial.
Bleicher, who is representing the flag-bearing youth, sent a letter to the Department of Appeals at the office of the Attorney General, noting that the incident was completely racially motivated, in the heart of Jerusalem, and that at least one suspect, who was recorded in the video clips, had been detained. “A case such as this must not be closed without prosecuting all of the assailants to the full extent of the law,” added Bleicher.
The appeal was accepted, and Honenu Attorney Bleicher welcomed the decision to reexamine the case: “Better late than never, and we expect assailants to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. There is no reason for Jews to be a target of racially motivated attacks, time after time, in this area of Jerusalem”