Slain Israeli hostage’s cousin brutally beaten in LA

Police say the brutal attack on the Santa Monica Pier is being investigated as a hate crime.

By World Israel News Staff

The cousin of a slain hostage currently held in the Gaza Strip was beaten by a group of anti-Israel protesters at a major Los Angeles tourist attraction after he was overheard speaking Hebrew in public earlier in September.

Ariel Marciano, who was visiting Los Angeles for a relative’s bar mitzvah, was walking along the Santa Monica Pier when he struck up a conversation with an Israeli expatriate now living in Las Vegas. Anti-Israel demonstrators in the area, present for a protest, overheard the men speaking Hebrew and began to assault Marciano.

“One of them hit me on the back of the head, and I started bleeding. Others pushed me around and tore the [Star of David] necklace off my neck. I pushed one of the masked attackers, and then they all jumped on me,” Marciano told The Jewish Journal.

Marciano added that one assailant, whom he described as a “tall black man” armed with a knife, told him: “‘You’re lucky I’m not stabbing you.’”

Marciano’s cousin, Guy Illouz, was murdered at the Nova Music Festival on October 7, 2023. His body was abducted by Hamas and has been held in Gaza for nearly two years.

The Santa Monica Police Department said in a statement on X that they were “deeply troubled” by the incident in which Marciano was “surrounded, assaulted, and singled out because of his religious identity.”

Police confirmed the case is being investigated as a hate crime, adding: “This kind of hate has no place in Santa Monica.”

Marciano told The Jewish Journal that authorities were unable to assist him because there were “too many demonstrators, and there’s nothing much the police can do against so many.”

Interim ADL Los Angeles Regional Director Peter Levi condemned the assault, calling it a “deplorable escalation of antisemitism across Southern California.”

He said the attack required “the immediate attention of law enforcement, community leaders, and elected officials,” urging everyone “to take a stand against the violence and intimidation targeting our community.”