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Two suspected 'price tag' attacks: Arab women attacked; cemetery vandalized

Day after Arab woman attacked with pepper spray in Tiberias, graffiti slamming Kerry and Livni found in Arab cemetery.

Two suspected hate crime attacks in two days: A Tiberias resident in her 20s claims she was attacked with pepper spray by a religious youth while walking down the town's boardwalk. Meanwhile, hateful graffiti was found scrawled on an Arab cemetery near Nesher.

 

 

Unknown vandals scrawled the words "price tag Tzipi Livni" and "thanks for Memorial Day" Friday at the Alkassam cemetery, as was the name of US Secretary of State John Kerry, in a reference to now suspended peace talks and Monday's Memorial Day for Israel's fallen soldiers.

 

If the attack is racially motivated it joins a string of such attacks this passing week, in which vandals targeted the northern Arab town of Fureidis and painted a Star of David and wrote "Close mosques, not yeshivot" on the walls of a mosque, as well as slashing the tires of dozens of cars.

 

 

The woman attack, Maram Azzam, a resident of the Arab town of Tayibe, filed a complaint with the police in Tiberias Thursday, claiming that a 14-year-old boy with a kippah sprayer her face with pepper spray while she was walking down Tiberias' boardwalk with her husband and three children.

 

"I came to Tiberias to vacation with my family for a few days. When me, my husband and our kids were on the boardwalk, a religious kid came up to me and spray me with a substance I didn't recognize," she said.

 

"At the time, I couldn’t open my eyes. My husband called an ambulance and I was taken to the hospital… the children were terrified."

 

She claims she was attacked for no apparent reason, and she claimed that the attack was racially motivated. "I think he targeted me because I was wearing a (traditional Arab) head scarf. This is a racist act which joins a string of other similar events which have taken place in recent months."

 

Arab MK Ibrahim Sarsur (United Arab List-Ta'al) slammed the attack in a letter he sent to the Internal Security minister and demanded he get involved in the investigation.

 

Her husband said the police were not quick to act after learning about the incident: "I expected the police to come to the hospital to talk my wife, but they never came. I can only hope they find the boy."

 

The police said an investigation has been launched and a source within the police told Ynet that the attack was probably racially motivated.

 

Eli Senyor also contributed to this report

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 05.02.14, 14:33
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