Honenu Atty. Bleicher; Photo credit: Honenu
Sunday, December 26, 2021, 15:38 Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher sent a letter to the Central District Commander of the Israel Police, Major General Avraham Biton, demanding a thorough investigation into an attack at a construction site in Ra’anana that occurred in early December. Bleicher, who is representing the two Jewish welders who were attacked, wrote that the investigation has not been carried out as it should have been and that as of now, not one of the assailants, including a site manager who joined in the attack after the victims called out to him for assistance, has been summoned for interrogation. On the other hand, when the two victims filed complaints at the police station they were immediately interrogated and placed under house arrest. Currently, Honenu is demanding that the investigation be transferred from the local police to the Central Unit of the Central District Police to the GSS. A copy of the letter, which is summarized below, was sent to the Minister of Public Security, Omer Bar-Lev.
The incident began when two Jewish workers arrived at the construction site in Ra’anana to work, carrying their equipment. They asked to enter the elevator at the site. Initially, the elevator operator refused and blocked their entry with his body. After they pleaded with him, and explained that they had been waiting for a long time, he eventually moved and allowed them to enter.
When they entered the elevator, three Arab workers were already inside. The elevator started its ascent with the two victims, the Arab workers and the Arab elevator operator. The workers harassed, shoved, and beat the victims. After several minutes, the elevator stopped and the two victims attempted to escape as soon as it opened. However, the elevator operator took a long metal rod and threw it at them. The rod hit the wall hard, ricocheted, and hit the elevator operator in the head.
The two victims said that at this stage they tried to get away again and called the site managers for assistance in extricating themselves from the situation. Simultaneously, a mob of workers started to gather around them from throughout the site, including from various places in the building under construction. Some of the workers held tools and pieces of metal, anything they could grab.
The two victims shouted in an attempt to deter the mob from approaching them. Then they noticed one of the site managers, Baha, approaching them. They called out to him for him to have his workers stop injuring them, but to their shock, he took a shovel and started to attack them himself.
Immediately after that, dozens of violent assailants attacked them, beating them all over their bodies with whatever objects they were holding. One of the victims was spared a head injury due to the protective helmet he was wearing. The other victim was also wearing a helmet, but the assailants succeeded in removing it and beat him in the head with metal objects. The mob continued to viciously beat them with their fists and the metal objects. The blows came incessantly from all directions and the victims felt as if they were experiencing the last moments of their lives. The victims saw the hate-filled bloodthirsty eyes of the attackers, whose murderous looks are firmly engraved in their memories.
The arrival of the victims’ work manager, who was armed, ended the horror. The violent assailants, who until that moment had not had any intent of stopping the beating, noticed the work manager holding his pistol and started to run away.”
The injured victims were evacuated to the hospital with bruises all over their bodies. One of them was released after several hours and immediately went to the K’far Saba Police Station to file a complaint. He was surprised when the interrogations officer ordered him to be interrogated under warning, and then placed him under five days of house arrest.
The other victim suffered four deep cuts and several bruises to his head. The following day, he was released from the hospital to recuperate at home. Due to the severity of his injuries, he was readmitted to the hospital. When he went to the Kfar Saba Police Station to file a complaint, he was also interrogated under warning, and then placed under five days of house arrest.
To the best of Honenu’s knowledge, none of the assailants have been detained, and despite the length of time that has passed, the victims have not been brought in to identify their assailants in a police line-up, even though they informed their interrogators that they are able to identify many of them. Additionally, the Electra Company has a list of everyone who was present at the construction site at the time of the incident.
It appears that this serious incident has not merited a thorough and intensive investigation, as it should have. Moreover, apparently the police investigation is focusing on whether or not there was a fight in the elevator, and is almost completely ignoring the violent mob attack, in which dozens of assailants, who were not connected at all to the attack in the elevator, took part. This incident could have easily ended with the death of the two victims. Even if there is not enough evidence to determine which of the testimonies of what happened in the elevator is correct, the much more serious part of the incident, the violent mob attack with dozens of participants acting together, must be thoroughly investigated as the focus of the investigation.
Likewise, one must not ignore the fact that the assailants were Arabs, who acted together to seriously injure two Jewish workers. Therefore, there are grounds for suspecting that a racist motive brought the crowd to act together, without any prior agreement.
An incident of this scale, with all due respect to the local police department, should be transferred for investigation to the Central Unit of the Central District Police and to the GSS, as the authority responsible for protecting the public from violence motivated by nationalistic racism. I ask his honor to order the Central Unit of the Central District Police to immediately take on the investigation of this case, to detain the assailants, and to prosecute them to the full extent of the law.
Despite the length of time that has elapsed since the attack and since the letter was sent, a response has not yet been received. In reaction, Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher stated: “Unfortunately it appears that the police are busying themselves with an imaginary fight, are not adequately investigating the attack, and have not given it suitable attention. It is intolerable that Jews in the Land of Israel, in the streets, on the roads, and at their places of work, are potential targets for attempted murder by violent, blood-thirsty mobs. The phenomenon of dozens of Arabs spontaneously joining together in order to viciously attack Jews must be firmly and decisively eradicated. We expect the Central Unit of the Central District Police and the GSS to bring about the detention of all of the suspects and to prosecute them to the full extent of the law.”