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.”
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.”
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