Israeli couple attacked in Berlin

An Arabic-speaking man assaulted the two as they sat in a restaurant speaking Hebrew.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

An Israeli couple was attacked in Berlin Saturday after an Arabic-speaking man heard the two speaking Hebrew in a fast-food restaurant.

After noticing the language they were using, the man, who was sitting at a table nearby with a male companion, started “making derogatory statements towards the two,” said the German police statement following the incident.

The 27-year-old woman and 24-year-old man asked him to stop, but instead he grew more violent. First he threw a bottle of beer at the woman, who blocked the bottle with her arm. He then hit her with a chair, which she fended off as well.

When her escort got up to defend her, the assailant punched him in the face. He then fled the scene together with his companion.

The couple filed a complaint with the police, saying the man had lightly hurt them in their arms and face, respectively, but refused medical attention, said the authorities.

The German State Security agency promptly opened an investigation into the antisemitic incident.

This is not the first attack on Hebrew-speaking people in Berlin since the start of the Hamas-Israel war on October 7. Ten days into the conflict, a man threw a firecracker at a couple after he heard what language they were conversing in.

It is unclear whether these Israelis were tourists or live in the country.

Nine days ago, a group of Israelis who have made Germany their home demonstrated outside the German Foreign Ministry in the capital in favor of an immediate cease-fire. Some 100 people stood with signs in German, Hebrew and Arabic that called for “Diplomacy, not war.” Several were highly critical of Israel, saying such things as “War crimes do not justify war crimes” and “Stop the massacre in Gaza.”

Calling themselves “Israelis for Peace,” they also repeated leftist chants against Israel’s supposed “occupation” of Palestinian land.

Ever since the Hamas invasion of Israel in which its men massacred 1,200 people, including the elderly and infants, the IDF has been fighting the terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip. They have had to contend with an enemy that embeds its military forces and infrastructure among the civilian population as a human shield, using hospitals, schools, mosques and private homes as command centers and launching pads for attacks on both Israeli soldiers on the front lines and Israeli civilians, through indiscriminate rocket attacks on cities, especially throughout the southern part of the country.