One injured as gang brawls at Arab-owned Tel Aviv bakery
Owner says drunk group assaulted him, one pulled out improvised pistol and shot cleaning worker who tried to intervene
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The Arab Israeli owner of a bakery in Tel Aviv where a brawl broke out the night before, posted his version of events on Sunday, insisting it was not sparked by pro-Palestinian nationalism but was rather a case of street violence.
A brief video from the clash outside the Abulafia bakery in the city’s popular port area showed people hitting each other with chairs and other furniture.
Bakery owner Said Abulafia posted to social media on Sunday giving his version of the events. He said it was not an incident provoked by nationalism on the part of Arab workers, as was claimed by some on social media, but was rather “a case of criminal violence in Israeli society.”
Abulafia wrote that a group of drunk Jewish men arrived at the bakery and an altercation developed with an Arab driver from the Wolt food delivery company.
The owner said he went outside and tried to calm the situation when one of the gang yelled at him asking if they were “in Israel or Palestine.”
Abulafia said he answered, “In Israel, ‘and I asked him to stop shouting,'” but another member of the gang shoved him and told him to not get involved.
“I asked him to calm down and in response, his friend punched me,” Abulafia recalled. Then, he said, the rest of the gang also attacked him.
תוקפים עם כיסאות: קטטה פרצה אמש בנמל תל אביב. הרקע לאירוע פלילי והנסיבות נחקרות @SivanSisay pic.twitter.com/lj3fgyVKbh
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) September 11, 2022
A worker at the bakery who was cleaning tables tried to intervene and then, according to Abulafia, “one of the attackers took out some kind of pistol and shot him in the head.”
The weapon was apparently an improvised pistol or an air pistol, according to Hebrew media reports, and the worker required hospital treatment for a gash on his forehead.
“I jumped on the shooter and neutralized him,” Abulafia said. As more workers from the bakery came to assist, the gang fled.
“It pains me that there are those who are trying to depict this as a nationalist incident,” he said. “I will continue my way as a law-abiding citizen in Israel, and as an Arab, to strive for coexistence and mutual respect.”
Yesh Atid MK Merav Ben Ami tweeted Sunday that Abulafiya “is my friend and I am proud of him and his family who are a symbol of coexistence in my city, Tel Aviv.”
Police opened an investigation, although the gang fled the scene before officers arrived. Officers said they gathered footage from security cameras and will soon summon the suspects for interrogation.
The Times of Israel Community.