Please see here a list of posts relating to cases in which Honenu provided legal counsel to victims of antisemitic attacks in Jerusalem.
Monday, May 9, 2022, 21:48 On Tuesday, May 10, a penalty hearing is scheduled to take place at the Jerusalem District Court for two of the Arab rioters who attacked Avia and Shahar Anteman, then a newly engaged couple, almost exactly one year ago (May 9, 2021). The couple will be present at the hearing, accompanied by Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher, who is representing them as victims of terror.
Bleicher: “Tomorrow, we will arrive at the hearing in order to demand stiff penalties for the attackers in the face of rising terror. After they were apprehended, it turned out that they are part of a terror cell that has carried out additional attacks on Jews over a long period of time. We will demand that the court hand down stiff penalties, without compromise, and that they do their part in the war on terror.”
The attack occurred immediately after Avia proposed to Shahar in Beit HaHoshen, overlooking the Temple Mount. The couple announced their engagement to family and friends and then headed towards Beit Orot. On the way, their car was blocked by other cars, and at the A Tor Intersection dozens of Arab rioters threw rocks at them. Avia got out of the car to drive the rioters away, but they threw him to the ground and beat him. They also stabbed him in the back, but at that point, he was unaware of the stabbing.
Shahar escaped from their car, hid behind another car, and called the police. She described the police dispatcher who took her call as someone who “wasn’t overly impressed” by the report. Avia, who was unaware that Shahar had left the car on her own, broke free from his attackers, drove quickly to Beit Orot, and told policemen there that an Arab mob had kidnapped his fiancee.
A police car went to the site where Shahar had left the couple’s car, and she left her hiding place to go to it. The couple met up again in Beit Orot. Avia was evacuated, injured and bleeding, to Sha’arei Tzedek Hospital. He suffered a head injury, stab wounds to his back, and a punctured lung. Due to prolonged hospitalization and outpatient treatments, the couple postponed their engagement party.
Shahar filed a complaint with the police. Avia voiced a complaint about the response by the police: “The police failed in their duties. We saw police all over the area, and even though Shahar called them, they didn’t come until I went and told them face to face about the attack. There is no deterrence factor. They know that incidents happen. We’re not the first to have rocks thrown at us there. Despite that, until I went to them, they didn’t do anything.”