A Palestinian hospitalized under duress after having attacked a rabbi with chair – Liberation
Repeated assaults. A Palestinian was hospitalized after having attacked a rabbi with a chair on Friday in Neuilly-sur-Seine (Hauts-de-Seine). The attacker, who attacked the rabbi Elie Lemmel installed on a coffee terrace, in particular by throwing a chair in the face, was arrested in the process, placed in police custody then led under the constraint to the hospital to receive psychiatric care.
« According to German language identity documents found in his possession »this man « Would have been born in Rafah (in the south of the Gaza Strip, Editor’s note) and would be 28 years old », said the Nanterre prosecution. He would be in an irregular situation in Germany but holder of a document allowing him to circulate in his German Land, said a source close to the file, stressing that the aggressor benefits from a status which offers a form of « tolerance » For people who are not deportable to a territory in conflict.
Contacted by Releasethe Nanterre prosecutor’s office confirmed that« An investigation in flagrance is open concerning these facts, qualified as aggravated violence, with an current custody since noon ».
The victim, who presents a wound on the front, explained a few moments after the assault having already been the subject of a similar act last week in Deauville (Calvados). According to RCJ radio, he had been attacked by three alcoholic people who had brought him a violent blow in the belly. « I have the impression that we are faced with (…) a crime of facies and it’s overwhelming »said on BFMTV the rabbi, kippa on the head and long gray beard. Elie Lemmel claims to have never seen his attacker whose acting on the coffee terrace did not anticipate. “I was focused on my exchange with the person in front of me. And so he may have shouted, but I didn’t pay attention to this at all. On the other hand, clearly, I felt it very strongly ”he explained.
The Rabbi Lemmel claims not to know the reasons for the assault: « What interests me is the continuation, on how we build, how we advance and how we act so that, precisely, it does not go back. (…) And basically, I am very afraid that we are in a world in which the words generate more and more ills ”he said.
« It is a aggression clearly because the assaulted person was a rabbi with an external appearance which mobilized against him the aggression, the unleashing, the hatred of a person who was there »reacted Prime Minister François Bayrou, on the sidelines of a trip to Montpellier. If he welcomed that « The outcome is not (summer) tragic », The head of government deplored that « The state of society leads to the radicalization of public debate and that one supports the other ».
On the social network X, the representative council of Jewish institutions in France (CRIF) condemned « With the greatest firmness the anti -Semitic assault with which was the victim » The Parisian rabbi. « When you are publicly identified as a Jew, you are potentially the target of hateful activists who can, in the name of a unwanted solidarity with the Palestinian cause, decide to attack Jewish French »also insisted on BFMTV the president of CRIF Yonathan Arfi. « Anti -religious acts must cause zero tolerance »for his part claimed on CNews the president of the Central Consistory, Elie Korchia.
In 2024, a total of 1,570 anti -Semitic acts were identified in France, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
Update at 5:20 p.m. with the addition of the response from the Nanterre prosecution; at 7 p.m. with the Palestinian nationality of the aggressor; at 9 p.m. with the hospitalization of the aggressor
