Israeli police brutally beat up an Arab supermarket worker in Central Tel Aviv after he refused to identify himself because he didn’t know who they were, according to eyewitnesses.
The incident occurred at the Super Yuda supermarket on Ibn Gabirol Street, opposite the Tel Aviv municipality.
The worker, an Israeli Arab, had gone outside to dispose of garbage when one of the policemen, who was dressed in shorts, demanded that he identify himself. When the worker asked by what authority he was being asked to identify himself, the policeman began hitting him, witnesses said.
Another witness said, “He was beaten only because he’s Muslim,” Super Yuda owner Kobi Cohen told media. “His only crime was that he’s not Jewish.”
Cohen further said that the original attackers were joined by plainclothes policemen and that there were as many as 10 people beating the worker.
An old woman tried to interfere asking why they were beating him but the attackers screamed at her telling her to leave.
The father of the assaulted youth further said that this attack demonstrates the situation in Israel at the moment and he holds the prime minister and the public security minister responsible for such horrible incidents.
He added that the entire nation has seen the video and the police shouldn’t wait for his complaint but should check this on their own and make those cops and thugs pay.
MK Dov Henin filed an urgent appeal with the public security minister, asking for answers “about what appears to be, on the face of it, a lynching in broad daylight, an attack of an innocent civilian by police, only because he’s Arab.”
