Arab youth: I was beaten and stabbed by Jewish attackers
Attack on Kafr Qasem resident came shortly after bodies of missing teens discovered; victim says attackers called him 'stinking Arab.'
Abu Iyad told police that the eight men brutally beat him and stabbed him five times in the lower body. Due to the severity of his wounds, he was taken by ambulance for medical treatment, and required 16 stitches.
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Abu Iyad told Ynet that he was attacked after he left his home following his evening meal. During the month of Ramadan, which began on Saturday, Muslims do not eat or drink from sunrise to sunset.
"After breaking the fast, I went for a bike ride at 11 pm on Monday," he said. "At the entrance to the city, several people in two cars asked me to pull over, claiming to be police officers."
He says that after he complied, the men got out of their cars and attacked him. "They swore at me and told me, 'You are a stinking Arab and you don’t deserve to live. Arabs belong in the grave'."
Abu Iyad says he managed to escape, and heard one of them say that they should also flee the scene before he could make a note of the cars' license plates.
"The attack happened because the boys were kidnapped and murdered and everything that is going on Hebron," Abu Iyad said. "I don't fight with anyone, and everyone respects me. I hope the police find the people behind this attack."
Abu Iyad's close relative, Jamal Bari, branded the attack terrorism, and called on the police to find those who carried out it.
"We condemn this incident," Bari said. "This terrorist act and there is no way that this will pass in silence. The police must make every effort to stop these lawbreakers."
The police confirmed that they had received a complaint on Monday about an attack on a resident of Kafr Qasem.
"We are making every effort to find the suspects involved," said a police spokesman. "We are investigating all leads, including a nationalistic motive."
This is not the first suspected case of an attack on an Arab following the murder of the three teens. On Wednesday, police found the body of an Arab teenager in the Jerusalem area, and were investigating a possible connection to the reported kidnapping of a Palestinian youth in East Jerusalem earlier in the day. Ynet learned that the youth's body was burned and showed signs of violence.
