'Youths attack African migrant with rocks in TA'

Three Tel Aviv youths launched a physical assault on an African migrant on Wednesday night, police said.

An Eritrean national told police he had been walking in a south Tel Aviv park when he was set upon without cause by three teenagers. In addition to absorbing blows, the man said, he was also pelted with rocks in the attack.

The migrant managed to flee his attackers, and arrived at a local police station to file a complaint.

Within minutes, police escorted him to the scene of the attack, and soon, the man spotted three boys aged 14 and 16 and recognized them as the attackers.

Officers proceeded to arrest the suspects. Police are treating the incident as a hate crime.

The victim sustained bruising in the attack and received medical attention.

Last month, a gang of 12 youths from south Tel Aviv were arrested on suspicion of launching a series of assaults on African migrants in south Tel Aviv.

Police believe the suspects, most of whom are minors, assaulted the migrants on several occasions.

During some of the assaults, the suspects allegedly beat victims with clubs, while in others, pepper spray was involved, police suspect.

African migrants have regularly reported being attacked in the neighborhoods of south Tel Aviv, often by young men riding up on motorscooters and assaulting them or throwing rocks or bottles at them before speeding off.

Last Saturday night, two men on a motorscooter drove up to an Eritrean-owned bar in the Hatikva neighborhood and threw a firecracker inside the establishment, leaving one patron lightly injured.

The same bar was ransacked during anti-migrant rioting that took place after a protest against asylum-seekers in the neighborhood in late May.