Attacked on vacation: 'Arab, get out of the Kinneret'

Nazareth Illit resident attacked during weekend trip to Kinneret with wife, hospitalized for a fractured jaw-bone; police launches investigation

Maor Buchnik|Published: 03.06.13 , 01:04

Four Tiberias residents were arrested for allegedly attacking an Arab citizen on one of the shores of the Kinneret on Saturday. According to police suspicion, the attack of Nimer Sharkawi, 43, was nationally motivated.

After the arrests, it was discovered that two of the suspects were involved in an attack on an Arab municipality worker in Tel Aviv last week.

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Sharkawi was vacationing with his wife in the Kinneret when the suspects

approached him: "Friday night we were at the beach and a group of about eight religious teens came in our direction and began shouting 'Arab, get out of the Kinneret,'" Sharkawi told Ynet.

Tiberias Police commander Chief Superintendent Avi Danieli said that Sharkawi received blows to his face, torso and lower-body, and that afterwards his assailants fled the scene.

Sharkawi managed to take himself to the hospital, where he received treatment for a fractured jaw-bone.

The hospital reported the incident to the police, which in turn arrested the four and brought them into questioning. Two of the suspects are minors.

Sharkawi, a father of six, reported being bludgeoned with a helmet, a bottle and stones.

"Each one of them picked up an object, and then they proceeded to break my face. They picked on me for no reason," he said.

"They knew we were Arabs because I spoke Arabic to my wife. They started cursing and then attacked like maniacs. I asked them: 'Why? What did I do to you?'"

According to him, they group continually beat him, but he managed to get away.

"My wife also ran away, each one of us to another direction. It is better she ran away, otherwise they would have hit her too," Sharkawi confesses.

"This is the first time something like this happened to me; I think these youths have lost their minds. I went to the hospital and underwent a five hour surgery for my broken jaw. I am planning a civilian law suit against them," he said.

The Nazareth Magistrate Court extended the remand of one of the youths involved.

Hate crime pattern

During the investigation, the police learned that two of those arrested were involved in another nationalistically motivated attack, and were transferred to the Tel Aviv District Police.

Four other Tiberias residents were arrested Monday in connection to the alleged attack of an Arab Tel Aviv municipality worker.

The municipality worker, Hassan Usruf, an Arab-Israeli man in his 40s who works as a street cleaner for the Tel Aviv Municipality, claimed he was attacked early last Sunday morning on the city's seaside promenade by a group of more than 20 Jewish youngsters. He sustained injuries to his head, eye socket and jaw.