A pro-Palestinian woman assaulted a group of Jewish-Israeli girls and an Israeli man at a kosher café in central London.
According to multiple videos of Thursday’s incident, a woman approached the girls, who were eating at the café, and asked if they were Jewish and if the restaurant was kosher. When one of the girls said yes, the woman screamed “free Palestine” in the girls’ faces and told them they were killing babies.
After the woman saw that one of the girls was filming, she began throwing their food at them, smashing their plates and yelling. She also threw one of the girls’ phones and broke it.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed to The Jerusalem Post on Monday that the woman “had assaulted staff and customers while shouting antisemitic abuse and comments related to the conflict in the Middle East.”
The spokesperson added that officers arrested a 32-year-old woman on the street nearby on suspicion of racially aggravated criminal damage and multiple assaults (actual bodily harm). She was taken into custody and subsequently released on bail.
Yael Isaac, who was one of the girls in the group, told Jewish News, “In general, we couldn’t understand half the things she was saying, but at one point during her tantrum, I asked her, ‘What if I don’t support Israel?’ She said she didn’t care and that I was Jewish, so that’s all that mattered to her.”
Many people watched the scene but did not intervene
Instagram creator Moriel Lee Shviki was sitting in the café and witnessed the incident.
“I see this crazy lady coming out of nowhere,” she said. “Obviously she knew it was a Jewish kosher café. And there were these two girls sitting outside, and she came up to them and just started attacking them, throwing all their food everywhere.
“Unfortunately, it took the police quite a long time to get there. She went on to harass a lot of other people.”
Shviki added that a lot of people watched the scene but did not intervene.
“This was not an attack based on land; this was an attack based on religion. This was an antisemite who was clearly attacking some Jews just simply sitting and enjoying their meal.”
She added that an Israeli guy who stood up for the two girls was physically assaulted by the woman, and shared pictures of a man’s arm with red scratches. Isaac told Jewish News that she and her friends were unharmed but that the woman had “slapped” someone else and “dug her nails into someone’s arm, causing blood.”
Community Security Trust (CST) said it is aware of “an incident that took place in London where police arrested a woman for a violent outburst, which we believe is being treated as a hate crime.
“CST attended the scene and has been supporting some of the customers in the restaurant at the time it occurred.”
It added that this was one of many antisemitic incidents to happen in recent months in which Jews have been “subjected to hatred and abuse, with Israel used as the excuse.”