Police arrest suspects in beatings of Arabs

Four youths were arrested Monday morning in Tiberias on suspicion that they were part of a group that last week attacked an Arab municipal worker on a boardwalk in Tel Aviv.

That incident saw Hassan Ausruf, 40, sent to the hospital with severe injuries after being assaulted by up to 20 drunken youths during the Purim holiday.

“They shouted things like ‘f**king Arab’ and ‘get your own country,’” said Ausruf, a sanitation worker for the city.

Ausruf required dozens of stitches, and surgery to save his eye, which suffered severe damage from the beating.

“It was a lynching, plain and simple,” said a coworker who found Ausruf bleeding on the side of the road after the attack.

Meanwhile Monday, police in Jerusalem said they had arrested two teenage girls in connection with last week’s apparent assault on an Arab woman at a station of the capital’s light rail, bringing the total number of arrests in the case to three.

The girls were released on bail and ordered to stay away from Jerusalem for 45 days.

During the deliberation, a police representative asserted that the attack was motivated by racist intent.

“The defendants asked the plaintiff if she was an Arab, and when she responded in the affirmative, they attacked her, spat on her and called her an Arab bitch,” First Sergeant Jackie Ben-Yakar said. “They kicked her, punched her, and pulled her headscarf.”

A bystander photographed the incident and the photos were publicized widely in Israeli media.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.