Please click here for a list of posts relating to cases in which Honenu provided legal counsel to victims of antisemitic attacks in Jerusalem.
Thursday, September 22, 2022, 8:42 Honenu has demanded that the police investigate an attack on a Jewish youth at the Cotton Merchants’ Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem at the beginning of this week. The youth was taking his customary prayer walk around the Old City of Jerusalem past the gates of the Temple Mount. When he reached the Cotton Merchants’ Gate and prayed at the site, which is close to the Temple Mount, an Arab approached him, cursed him, and shoved him. Other Arabs who were on the roof of a nearby house filled buckets with water and poured them on the youth.
The youth felt increasingly threatened and called the police to report the incident. Immediately after he called, the Arabs started to shove him away from the site. In the meantime, the first attacker brought a glass bottle and smashed it directly on his face. The youth had deep cuts on his face, near his eye, on his jaw, and on his ear. He bled profusely and lost a lot of blood, which flowed onto his clothes. He called MDA (EMT) medics, who transported him to Sha’arei Tzedek Hospital. He was hospitalized and required more than 20 stitches to his face. When the injured youth went to the police station to file a complaint, relatives of the suspect waited for him outside, threatened him, and cursed him.
Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher, who is assisting the victim, wrote a letter to the police demanding that they open an investigation and investigate the incident as a terror attack. In his letter, Bleicher wrote, “This was a horrifying terror attack. Smashing a glass bottle over someone’s head is a life-threatening act that could have ended tragically. I ask you to verify that the detainee remains in remand until the end of proceedings against him and that he be indicted for attempted murder in an act of terror or at least aggravated assault in an act of terror. I also ask you to apprehend the rest of the participants in the attack and put them on trial for their part in the attack.”