Jewish suspect said arrested for alleged racist attack on Arab man in Jerusalem
Suspected perpetrator allegedly hit victim with metal bar in East Jerusalem’s flashpoint Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, causing cerebral hemorrhage
A Jewish suspect from Jerusalem was arrested on Friday for an alleged racist attack against an Arab man two months ago.
The suspect, a 21-year-old resident of the capital, carried out the alleged assault in the flashpoint East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, Hebrew media reports said.
The victim, a resident of East Jerusalem, had been sitting with a Jewish woman at the time of the attack on April 15. The suspect, together with an accomplice, arrived on the scene and struck the victim with a metal bar.
The victim went home after the attack, but after a couple of hours, his condition deteriorated, and he was brought to a hospital where he was diagnosed with a cerebral hemorrhage.
He was sedated and put on a respirator for about a week.
Police arrived at the scene after the attack, opened an investigation, and issued an arrest warrant for the suspect, who managed to flee abroad immediately after the incident.
He returned to Israel on Friday morning and was arrested at Ben Gurion International airport when he landed, Hebrew media reports said.
A court remanded him into custody for five days. Police are investigating the attack as racially motivated attempted murder.
תקיפת הערבי בשייח ג'ראח לפני חודשיים: החשוד נפתלי האעמר בן ה-21 תקף את הגבר, יחד עם חברו, כי דיבר עם יהודייה. החשוד ניסה להימלט ונעצר בנתב"ג | לידיעה המלאה >>> https://t.co/OBKIVgMYxV@VeredPelman pic.twitter.com/Mw9rXIZQJB
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Police did not proactively report the initial assault, or the arrest, and only released information about the case after a request from the Ynet news site.
A police spokesperson told Ynet in response that not all of the dozens of cases it deals with on a daily basis get reported.
The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood has become one of Jerusalem’s tensest in recent years.
Jewish nationalists have sought to evict Palestinian residents in decades-long legal battles that were among the catalysts of an 11-day war between Israel and the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip in 2021.
In a separate incident last month, an IDF soldier was questioned by the Shin Bet security agency over alleged involvement in a suspected racially motivated attack on two Arab minors in the city of Hadera.
The Shin Bet was involved in the investigation as the attack was suspected to be racially or nationalistically motivated.
According to an initial investigation, the soldier and other suspects chased after the two Arab minors and assaulted them, leading to their hospitalization.
The Times of Israel Community.