http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/19/hunt-for-israelis-who-killed-eritrean-man-falsely-implicated-in-bus-attack
Hunt for Israelis who killed Eritrean man falsely implicated in bus attack
Haftom Zarhum shot by security guard then attacked by mob in Beersheba
after another man attacked bus in latest outbreak of violence
A woman is comforted as others react after an attack on the bus
station at Beersheba. Photograph: Dudu Grinshpan/AFP/Getty Images
Peter Beaumont in Ein HaBesor
Monday 19 October 2015 08.13 EDTLast modified on Monday 19 October 201509.40 EDT
Israeli police are hunting members of a group of Israelis who killed
an Eritrean migrant after mistakenly identifying him as a terrorist
involved in an attack at a bus station.
Haftom Zarhum was shot repeatedly by a security guard then kicked and
spat at by a mob after going to the southern Israeli city of Beersheba
to pick up his renewed work visa. He was walking past the central bus
station with a group of friends when an Israeli Bedouin armed with a
gun and knife attacked a bus,killing an Israeli soldier and injuring
10 others.
In the panic surrounding the attack, Zarhum was identified as a
suspected accomplice, apparently based on his appearance. The Israeli
daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth was among several media organisations
that left no ambiguity as to why it believed he had been shot.
Monday’s headline read: “Just because of his skin colour.”
In events that some Israeli media called a lynching, Zarhum was shot
and wounded before being shot several more times by a security guard
at the bus station as he crawled along the floor. Still alive, he was
then surrounded by people who cursed and spat at him, kicked him in
the head and tried to hit him with a chair.
As paramedics tried to rescue him, the crowd chanted “Death to Arabs”,
“Arabs out!” and “Am Israel Hai” (“The people of Israel still live”)
and tried to stop them. “It’s terrible,” said a foreign ministry
spokesman, Emmanuel Nahshon, one of a number of officials to comment
on the killing. “It shows you what a terrible situation we are in.”
In Beersheba on Monday, Zarhum’s Eritrean friends and co-workers were
gathered on a bench not far from the bus station, including Amani
Tewelde who was with him when he was killed.
“We were waiting at the bus station,” Tewelde said. “The bus was late
and then someone started shooting. ‘Mila’ went one way and I went to
the other side. They shot him twice. Then I saw them kicking him.
Someone found his visa and was holding it shouting he’s Eritrean, he’s
not a terrorist, but no one could hear him.”
Habtom Hagos said Zarhum had been in Israel three and a half years and
was in Beerseheba to renew his work visa. “He was waiting for the bus
to go back to the moshav where he lived and worked,” he said. “He had
no gun. Why did they shoot him?”
Zarhum worked at the moshav (a cooperative agricultural community) of
Ein HaBesor near the southern Gaza border. His employer described him
as a modest and hardworking man who had fled Eritrea to Israel for
safety.
“He was a good guy and a hard worker who lived here,” said Sagi
Malchi. “It breaks my heart. I think the man was in the wrong place at
the wrong time.”
Zarhum’s killing came after one of the most serious attacks in recent
weeks of escalating violence and underscored a febrile and dangerous
atmosphere in which there have been a number of revenge attacks on
Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. One previous attempted attack in
Netanya was prevented by other Israelis.
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, on Monday warned
against vigilantism. “We’ve a country of law. No one will take the law
into his own hands,” he told his party’s lawmakers in broadcast
remarks on Zarhum’s death.
In the past fortnight, 41 Palestinians, including assailants and
demonstrators at anti-Israeli protests, eight Israelis and one
Eritrean have been killed.
The attack on Zarhum was caught on video, with one person taking part
telling Army Radio: “I saw people gathering around him.” The man, only
identified as Dudu, added: “I understood from the people around him he
was a terrorist. If I had known I would have helped him. In a moment
of fear and pressure you do things you don’t understand.
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“All the people gathering around the man attacked him. Nobody was
helping him. People just were making sure he doesn’t move. There is no
human being who did not kick or beat him. Everyone took part. I
couldn’t sleep last night thinking about what happened and I feel sick
about myself.”
Another witness told the Yedioth Ahronoth website, Ynet: “People took
out their rage on the wounded Eritrean and abused him. We thought he
was one of the terrorists. He was shot in the legs and the real
terrorist ran outside.”
As Israeli police announced an investigation into the attack on
Zarhum, they said they were looking for individuals who had attacked
him after he was incapacitated by the first gunshot.
His employer, Malchi, said Zarhum had worked for a year running one of
his greenhouses. “In general I don’t know all my workers. I knew him
and in the course of the last months we spoke a lot. He was a modest
guy, very quiet, and he did his job in the best possible way.
“I was watching the news and I saw what happened and I saw an Eritrean
but didn’t recognise him. What I feel is sadly familiar. It is a bad
day. And I also feel bad for the family of the soldier who was
killed.”
Describing those involved in the brutal attack, Malchi said: “It is a
shame people in Israel have this barbaric attitude. A pity that a
small group of people do this terrible service to our country.”
Condemning Zarhum’s killing, Human Rights Watch described it as “a
tragic but foreseeable outgrowth of a climate in which some Israeli
politicians encourage citizens to take the law into their own hands”.
Sari Bashi, the Israel-Palestine director at HRW, added: “The Israeli
authorities should investigate and prosecute those responsible for the
attack. Israel faces acute threats to public safety, but vigilantism
will only lead to more innocent people being harmed or killed.”
The recent violence was set off in part by Palestinians’ anger over
what they see as increased Jewish encroachment on Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa
Mosque complex.
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, who is due to hold separate
meetings this week with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, said on
Monday it was vital to clarify the status around the compound, also
revered by Jews as the location of two destroyed biblical temples.
“I don’t have specific expectations except to try to move things
forward, and that will depend on the conversations themselves,” Kerry
told reporters in Madrid.
Netanyahu has said he seeks no change to the decades-old status quo in
which Israel bans Jewish prayer at the al-Aqsa site in the walled old
city of East Jerusalem, captured along with the West Bank in a 1967
war.
Received on Mon Oct 19 2015 - 10:35:01 EDT