Court extends detention of 3 suspects in attack on pregnant Arab woman in Jaffa

The Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday extended the detention of three people accused of attacking a pregnant Arab woman in Jaffa over the weekend, in what police described as a racist attack.

The three are suspected of pepper-spraying 30-year-old Hanan Abu Shehadeh while she was driving Saturday in Jaffa with her two children and mother-in-law. According to her account, the young men hurled racist epithets at her and spat on her young daughter through the open car windows.

The three suspects will remain in detention until Sunday, six days after their December 15 arrest. The decision is a partial fulfillment of the police request to extend their detention by eight days, out of concern that they might obstruct the investigation.

The Shin Bet internal security agency is also involved in the investigation, according to the Kan public broadcaster.

The court issued a gag order on details of the investigation and information that could identify the suspects.

However, at the hearing on Tuesday, according to Haaretz, a police representative described the three as “hilltop youth” — a term for Jewish extremists in the West Bank who have set up illegal outposts there and who have, in many cases, been involved in incidents of settler violence.

One of the suspects had been placed in administrative detention two years ago for a period of some months, on suspicion of having attacked Palestinians in the central West Bank, the outlet reported. According to Hebrew media, the suspects have also been barred from entering the West Bank.

The police representative reportedly further asserted that the attack was premeditated, and was done out of a “racist motive.”

The assertion marked a departure from the police’s initial description of the incident as “apparently an argument on the road that escalated.”

Asked about the claim that the incident was a fight over parking, Abu Shehadeh told Kan: “First of all, I don’t park in the middle of the street — we have a dedicated parking lot in the area, that’s enough for many people, so there was no parking issue.”

She told the news outlet: “They shouted at me, ‘smelly Arab’; when they pushed my mother-in-law, they said we took their country, their land. I don’t understand how it happened like that, in Jaffa, in broad daylight, in the middle of the street.”

The three suspects are being represented by Assaf Gonen, a lawyer with the right-wing legal aid organization Honenu, who alleged that his clients acted in self-defense.

“The suspects maintain they arrived there for a walking tour, and one of them accidentally hit the family’s car, and immediately people came out and gathered around them, and in self-defense one of them sprayed the pepper spray,” he told Haaretz.

The incident had prompted hundreds of Arab residents of Jaffa to march in protest on Saturday. Demonstrators chanted, “Tell the Shin Bet dogs we’re not afraid of conflict,” and, “In blood, in spirit, we will redeem Jaffa.”

A day after the march, officers arrested 14 men at their homes in connection with that protest, on suspicion of engaging in “behavior that is liable to disturb the public peace,” as well as Sheikh Issam al-Satal on suspicion of incitement. All 15 were released on bail by the court on Monday afternoon, after Judge Shelly Kotin rejected the police request to extend the protesters’ detention by five days and temporarily bar them from Jaffa.

Meanwhile, Arab residents of Jaffa went on strike to protest the attack, leading schools and businesses to shutter on Monday. Another protest over the attack and its aftermath is scheduled for Friday in Jaffa, according to Arabic outlets.

Noam Lehmann contributed to this report.