The police on Tuesday arrested a Palestinian man who was in Israel illegally at a construction site in the coastal city of Bat Yam, authorities said. During the arrest, officers also found an Arabic-language copy of Adolf Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf,” bearing the Nazi leader’s photograph.
The man was identified by police as a Palestinian from the West Bank who did not have valid permits to be in Israel. Police said he was employed at the site and had also been sleeping there.
In a statement, the Tel Aviv District Police said the arrest was part of “focused enforcement activity against offenses involving the employment, transportation and housing of illegal residents.” The statement said police have stepped up inspections at businesses and construction sites where there is suspicion that Palestinians without permits may be present, “in order to strengthen public safety and security.”
Police said officers from the Bat Yam station located the man at a construction site on Ha’orgim Street. His employer was detained for questioning, and the district police commander, Maj. Gen. Haim Sargarof, signed an administrative order closing the site for 30 days.
The discovery echoed a statement made last year by President Isaac Herzog, about a month after the outbreak of the war in Gaza. Herzog said Israeli troops had found a copy of “Mein Kampf” in what he described as a children’s room that had been converted into a Hamas base in northern Gaza.
In an interview with the BBC at the time, Herzog said the book contained notes and markings made by a Hamas operative. “This is the book that led to the Holocaust and World War II,” Herzog said. “This book was found a few days ago in northern Gaza, in a children’s room that became a base used for terrorist activity by the Hamas terrorist organization. The terrorist wrote notes, marked sections and studied again and again the ideology of Adolf Hitler — hatred of Jews, killing Jews, burning and slaughtering Jews wherever they are. This is the real war we are facing.”