Police hunt for 10 culprits, apparently Muslims of North African descent • Two of the victims hospitalized with head and neckinjuries • Assailants reportedly cursed at the victims, called them "dirty Jews" and returned later with friends, hammers and metal rods.
Eli Leon, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Parents rush to their children in the aftermath of the deadly March 19th shooting attack at Otzar Hatorah Jewish day school.
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Photo credit: AP |
Three Jews wearing kippot (skullcaps) were attacked on Saturday in the city of Villeurbanne, just outside Lyon in eastern France. Ten men armed with iron rods and hammers perpetrated what the French Interior Ministry has officially classified as an anti-Semitic attack.
Two of the three victims were hospitalized, one with injuries to the head, and the other with neck injuries.
The French police reported that the three victims, aged 19, 21 and 22, had been heading home when they were confronted by a gang of three, apparently Muslim, North Africans, Army Radio reported.
A verbal argument erupted, and the Africans summoned seven friends. When they arrived, the group attacked the young Jews with hammers, clubs and metal rods.
"My son is engaged, and he isn't allowed to see his intended bride for a week so he went with two friends to eat at his older brother's house," Army Radio quoted Lydia Azoulay, the mother of one of the victims, as saying. "On the way back, a Muslim boy said, 'Dirty Jews' to them and spit, sparking an argument. They were three against three then. Later that same evening, when the three came back from the brother's house, they were jumped by eight to ten Muslims holding clubs, pieces of metal and a hammer. The police told us later that they had also recovered knives."
French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault harshly condemned the incident saying "this is a serious case of unexplained violence."
"We will fight anti-Semitism with the law, but through education as well," Ayrault added.
French Interior Minister Manuel Walls also condemned the attack, calling it a grave incident and describing it as "a targeted attack against the French republic, which is supposed to allow everyone to live in freedom and security, according to their personal religious beliefs, without discrimination."
French police in Villeurbanne, Lyon and the surrounding areas were investigating the incident and searching for the culprits. As of press time, no arrests had been made.
Saturday's attack was yet another incident in a string of anti-Semitic attacks, including a March 19 attack in Toulouse, carried out by an Algerian Frenchman named Mohamed Merah, who shot and killed four Jews at the Otzar Hatorah Jewish school. The bodies of Yonatan Sandler, 30, from the Kiryat Yovel neighborhood of Jerusalem, along with his two sons Aryeh, 3, and Gavriel Yissacher, 6, and of the 8-year-old daughter of the school’s principal, Miriam Montesango, were brought to Israel for burial. In addition to these victims, Merah killed three French soldiers.
“We are used to being cursed at when we go out, but they usually leave after they curse," Azoulay told Army Radio. "The Toulouse attack was a victory for them. They feel like heroes now."
"I love Israel very much, and my heart is there, but I have work to do here. In Chabad we believe that we must carry on with our work for as long as there is a single other Jew in the community. If they see that I am afraid, what will they say?" she asked.
Around the same time as the Otzar Hatorah attack, reports of desecrations of Jewish graves were reported in Nice, France. About a week after the incident, a student was attacked at the Paris branch of the Otzar Hatorah school. Reports said the attackers cursed and beat the Jewish student.
France is home to Europe's largest Jewish population, and the third largest concentration of Jews in the world following Israel and the U.S. The Jewish population of France numbers just under 500,000 and there have been intermittent bouts of anti-Semitic incidents.
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