Four additional Jewish teenagers were arrested on Sunday for the Thursday night
beating in downtown Jerusalem that left a 17-yearold Arab in critical
condition.
Police are still expecting additional arrests in the incident
that shocked the capital, as eyewitnesses claimed that dozens of Jewish youth
beat Jamal Julani almost to death.
The attack took place just after
midnight on Thursday night in Zion Square. Eyewitnesses said approximately two
dozen Jewish teenagers surrounded Julani and began beating him, continuing to
kick him even after he fell unconscious to the ground.
Paramedics who
arrived on the scene found Julani unresponsive and with no pulse.
They
used CPR and defibrillators for more than 10 minutes before his pulse returned
and evacuated him in critical but stable condition to Hadassah University
Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem.
Five Jewish teenagers, four
males and one female, have been arrested thus far. The youngest is 13 years old.
One 19-year-old Jerusalem resident arrested on Saturday afternoon was remanded
on Sunday at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court. Police created a special
investigative team to deal with the incident and expect additional arrests in
the coming days.
Vice Premier Moshe Ya’alon on Sunday described two
violent attacks against Arabs over the weekend in the West Bank and Jerusalem as
“hate crimes” and “terrorist acts.”
He was also referring to the
firebombing of a Palestinian taxi near Gush Etzion on Thursday, which wounded
six people, including two children.
Ya’alon called the attacks “totally
unacceptable and outrageous” and ascribed their incidence to a moral and
educational failure that goes against Jewish ethics and values.
Ya’alon
wrote on his Twitter account that Israel cannot afford such phenomena and that
it is the duty of elected officials to use all the tools at their disposal to
fight an allout war to ensure these “heinous acts” are not
repeated.
Julani’s situation improved on Sunday and he is no longer
unconscious nor connected to a respirator, according to a spokeswoman for the
Hadassah University Medical Center. He is awake and responsive and was moved out
of the intensive care unit to a regular floor, the spokeswoman
added.
Julani’s parents, from the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Ras
el-Amud, told Israel Radio that their son was a “victim of terror” and called on
the police to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice with the same
intensity that they would if the victim were Jewish.
A crowd of 200
people demonstrated on Saturday night in Zion Square to show their disgust with
the incident with the Bright Tag antiracism forum.
“It is of course not a
onetime issue, it is a continuation of the atmosphere of racial harassment, it
is a continuation of Gush Etzion on Thursday,” said Dr. Gadi Gvaryahu, the
director of Bright Tag.
“There were 10 mosques burned in two years.
They’ve desecrated two monasteries.
Of course it is all connected one to
another,” he said.
Gvaryahu said the fact that police had not caught
anyone responsible for the mosque burnings in the past two years sent a de facto
message that those actions are acceptable, which just leads to more price-tag
attacks against Arabs.
“We need to catch whoever burned the mosques. If
it was a synagogue in Europe we’d be shaking with anger, and rightly so. But we
need to deal with Jewish terror the way we’re dealing with Arab terror,” he
said.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat on Sunday came out strongly against
violence in the nation’s capital, releasing a statement saying, “I unequivocally
condemn any expression of violence, both verbal or physical, by any party.” The
mayor added that he is confident police will bring the attackers to justice,
while calling for continued co-existence in the city.
Jerusalem Post
staff contributed to this report.