Shmuel (Zangi) Meidad; Photo credit: Honenu
Saturday, December, 19, 2020, 22:02 Several Arabs assaulted a youth from the Jewish Community of Hevron near the Tel Romeida neighborhood on Shabbat afternoon. The incident began with an argument between Arab youths and the Jewish youth. Then Arab adults joined the disturbance and severely assaulted the youth. Nearby soldiers who protected the youth were also assaulted by the Arabs.
Policemen from the Hevron Police who arrived on the scene prevented the soldiers from detaining the Arabs. The assaulted youth and other residents from the Jewish Community of Hevron objected, and at some point the policemen detained two youths who were protesting the refusal to detain the Arab assailants.
Shmuel (Zangi) Meidad, the director of Honenu, who lives in the Jewish Community of Hevron, described the incident: “Arabs attacked a Jewish boy and also the soldiers who protected him. Friends of the boy, youth from the Jewish Community of Hevron together with other residents, arrived on the scene and asked the army officers to detain the assailants. The soldiers who were present during the incident also reported the Arabs who had surrounded the Jewish boy and that they had felt that he was in danger. In response, the youths protested in a demand to detain the assailants. A police car arrived on the scene and to the shock of the residents, two Jewish youths were brutally detained. They were punched in the face and one of them was injured in his eye.
“Residents at the scene requested that the police not detain them on Shabbat. The policemen ignored them and applied considerable force on the youths and other residents who were standing on the street and demanding that the police refrain from the unnecessary detention. The residents repeated their request not to detain the youths on Shabbat and to wait a short time until after the close of Shabbat. The police chose to ignore them. Not a single Arab was detained.”
At the conclusion of the incident, three Jewish youths were detained, and none of the Arab assailants. After Shabbat, Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher went to the police station to assist the detainees and stated: “On Shabbat afternoon, a Jewish youth was assaulted by Arabs in Hevron. Unfortunately the police brutally detained the Jewish youths, unnecessarily violating Shabbat. We demand that the law enforcement authorities take action against the Arabs who assaulted, and not against their victims. Additionally, we demand that the police brutality be investigated.”