A family vacation in Milan turned nightmarish for a French Jewish father when he was attacked in front of his six- and twelve-year-old children at a highway rest stop. The father, who filed a police complaint, recounted a shocking response from the officer taking his statement: “He told me, ‘Tell Benjamin Netanyahu to stop bombing Gaza.’”
The incident took place over the weekend when the father stopped with his children at a rest area. Speaking to French channel CNEWS on Tuesday, he described how about 20 people surrounded him, shouting “Free Palestine” and “murderer.”
The attack in Italy
He recorded the encounter on his phone, but soon after, he said, he was physically assaulted in front of his young son. “They trampled me, kicked me in the legs and stomach,” he told CNEWS. “When I got up, someone strong pinned me against a wall and tried to hit me. At that moment, I realized I couldn’t see my son.”
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After filing a complaint, he encountered hostility from the police. “When we asked the officer to request security footage from the restaurant, he said it required authorization and if they refused, it couldn’t be obtained. I also asked for outside footage to identify the attackers’ license plates but I quickly realized it wasn’t going anywhere,” he said.
The father’s video was shared on the French Jewish platform “Voix Juive.” While some viewers were horrified, others sharply criticized Israel. Yossi Spitezki, a French-Jewish advocacy activist, expressed outrage at the footage.
“A Jewish man stops at a gas station on an Italian highway and is harassed with ‘Free Palestine’ chants just because his son was wearing a kippah. He’s French, with no connection to Israel. Where have we come to? Don’t you think this goes too far? Will you wait 10 years to say ‘never again,’ or will you act now against this hatred? It’s becoming unbearable.”