Minister urges cops, courts to get tough on attackers of seniors

Minister for Senior Citizens Affairs Uri Orbach called on the police and the courts on Sunday to adopt a zero-tolerance attitude towards violence against the elderly, following two attacks on senior citizens over the weekend.

“The elderly are not punching bags for every bully,” Orbach wrote on his Facebook page, adding that “attacks against the elderly indicate the deterioration of our society.” Orbach urged the commissioner of police to crack down on such offenders and said the courts need to punish convicted attackers to the full extent of the law.

A man in his late 70s was hospitalized on Saturday evening, suffering from a broken leg and head injuries after being beaten by a 28-year-old man in Herzliya.

Amiram Oron was in a public park in an area designated for children when the younger man entered with his dog. According to police reports, when Oron told the man that he was not allowed to bring a dog into that section of the park, the younger man attacked him. Oron was taken by ambulance to Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba.

Police arrested the alleged assailant, who was set to go before a Tel Aviv Magistrates Court judge for a remand hearing later Sunday.

The incident was the second in two days against elderly men. On Friday, Pavel Gertman, a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor, was assaulted in a public park in Holon by a man after Gertman asked his children to stop dismantling the park benches. The suspect, a man in his 40s, denied having punched Gertman, claiming that the two merely shoved each other.

Three weeks ago, another Holocaust survivor, 84-year-old Reuven Yonah, was attacked by a group of youths in Petah Tikva.