Jewish Israeli said arrested for stabbing Arab employee
Yosef Ben-Chaim set to be indicted for attacking worker with box-cutter at Beit Shemesh supermarket; denies allegations
A Jewish Israeli man was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly stabbing his Arab employee at a Beit Shemesh supermarket in a suspected racist assault.
The suspect used a box-cutter in his attack on his worker, according to the Walla news website.
A video clip featured in the report also appeared to show suspect Yosef Ben-Chaim punching the Arab worker, who has not been named.
Ben-Chaim’s remand was extended on Wednesday, and an indictment was expected in the coming days.
“Yesterday, the complainant was attacked and insulted due to his race, and was attacked with fists, kicks, and blows all over his body, and injured with a box-cutter,” the attorney for the worker said in court, according to Walla. “The defendant has been interrogated and has denied all the allegations against him.”
In November, a 33-year-old Israeli man was charged with attempted murder for stabbing a Jewish man in a parking lot after mistaking him for an Arab. Shlomo Pinto, a resident of Kiryat Ata, attacked supermarket worker Uri Razkan on October 13 in an Ikea parking lot in the Haifa suburb. He was indicted on two counts of attempted murder and possession of a knife.
In late October, an Israeli teenager who stabbed four Arab men in the southern city of Dimona earlier that month in an apparent terror attack was indicted in the Beersheba District Court on four counts of attempted murder.