Attorney Chaim Bleicher of the Honenu legal aid organization wrote a letter to the Jerusalem police requesting that they arrest an Arab employee at the Cleanor cleaning company for attacking a Jewish woman in Jerusalem.

Despite the fact that two weeks have passed since the attack and the attacker’s identity is known and has been transferred to the police, he has not yet been arrested.

Bleicher described the incident in his letter: “My client was driving her car with her four young daughters when traffic congestion developed due to a protest that was taking place on nearby streets. The traffic police directed all the vehicles, including my client’s vehicle, to enter the Egged parking lot and pass through it and exit on the other side. My client stood in the line of vehicles passing through the barrier at the entrance, proceeding slowly. At one point, she was noticed by an Arab worker of the ‘Cleanor’ company who was standing there. It should be noted that my client is a woman with a religious Jewish appearance who wears a headscarf.”

“Suddenly and for no reason, the Arab approached her car and started banging hard on the car’s roof and kicking the car while shouting in Arabic. My client begged him to let her pass but he began beating her through the open window, slapping and punching her face, and he also pounded with his fists on the back windows of the car where her daughters were sitting.”

“The girls in the car were extremely frightened, burst into tears, and begged their mother to flee. She tried to move forward but the Arab stood in front of the vehicle and wouldn’t let her drive. He then grabbed my client’s hand and jerked it backward, while she was forced to grip the steering wheel with her other hand.”

“My client shouted at him to let her go but he continued to hit her with punches and slaps, and even broke the left side mirror. My client managed to make some progress with the vehicle and went out to take a picture of the Arab, but he attacked her and threw the device from her hands to the ground, severely damaging it.”

“A Chareidi driver who noticed what was happening and got out of the car to help her, forced the Arab to stop and let her go. Afterward, my client saw that Arab drivers who were there approached the attacker and ordered him to go to the hospital and say that she tried to run him over.”

Bleicher also wrote that there are photos of the scene of the incident and that the identity of the attacker is known to the victim and she turned the evidence over to the police but so far the Arab has not yet been arrested.

“This is a very serious incident,” Bleicher asserted. “A vicious nationalistic attack on a woman in her car in front of her young daughters in such a brutal manner is a serious act that cannot be ignored. The assailant must be brought to justice to the fullest extent of the law for these serious acts – beating, twisting a hand, endangering a person on a transportation route, and monetary damage to the cell phone and the car. I would like to see this incident treated with all the appropriate severity and an exhaustive and in-depth investigation of the case be carried out.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)