A savage fight between Jewish and Arab teenagers in downtown Jerusalem’s Zion
Square late Thursday night left a 20-year-old Arab man in critical
condition.
Witnesses called it a “lynch situation” against three
Arabs.
A 19-year-old Jewish Jerusalem man was arrested on Saturday
afternoon in connection with the beating. He was brought to the Jerusalem
Magistrate’s Court for a remand hearing on Saturday. Police refused to say
whether he had a history of similar incidents.
They expect to make
additional arrests in the case in the coming days.
Jerusalem police
spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said police were checking into the background of the
incident and did not know who started the fight. He added that the people
involved were aged 15 to 20, according to eyewitnesses.
Acting Jerusalem
police head Asst.-Ch. Manny Yitzhaki appointed a special team to investigate the
attack.
“The area is under video surveillance; we are checking the
cameras,” Ben-Ruby said. “We will know what happened after we check the
cameras.”
An eyewitness wrote in a Facebook post that she heard dozens of
Jewish youths shouting curses at three Arabs, and then a fight broke
out.
“When one of the Arab teenagers fell to the floor, the teenagers
continued to hit him in the head. He lost consciousness, his eyes rolled, his
angled head twitched, and then those who were kicking him fled and the rest
gathered in a circle around him, with some still shouting with hate in their
eyes,” she wrote. She added that the Jewish teenagers apparently attacked the
group of Arabs without provocation, previously saying that they “wanted to beat
up an Arab.”
Amir Edri, a Magen David Adom paramedic from the intensive
care division, was notified of the attack at 12:10 a.m. on Friday.
“When
we arrived we saw a man about 20 years old on the ground with no pulse,” Edri
said. Edri took over lifesaving measures from United Hatzalah medics who were
first on the scene. After about 10 minutes of intensive CPR and the use of
defibrillators, the man’s pulse returned. He was taken to Hadassah University
Medical Center, Ein Kerem, in critical but stable condition.
Edri said
the Arab man had suffered a strong blow to the head but he did not see any marks
of weapons such as knives. On Friday, the man was still on a respirator but did
not seem to be suffering from lasting brain damage or internal injuries, Edri
added.
In August 2010, a group of drunk teenagers beat a homeless man to
death with a wooden plank in the same area, also late on a Thursday night.
During the investigation, one of the teenagers said that the victim,
Israeli-American Lance Wolf, 60, had refused to give them a cigarette.