Israeli police vow to arrest those who took part in ‘lynching’

Israeli police have vowed to arrest anyone who participated in the fatal attack on an Eritrean man who was mistaken for a Palestinian militant during Sunday night’s shooting in the Beersheba central bus station.

The incident also left a soldier dead and 11 Israelis wounded, while the Israeli Bedouin who perpetrated the attack, armed with a gun and knife, was killed at the scene by police.

Shocking footage from CCTV cameras and mobile phones was aired on Israeli TV stations showing Mulu Habtom Zerhom (29), who was initially shot by a security guard, lying in a pool of blood as a crowd threw chairs at him and kicked him, spat and swore at him, while shouting “death to the Arabs” and “Arabs out.”

The crowd tried to prevent an ambulance crew evacuating the man, who died of his wounds in a Beersheba hospital shortly after the attack.

Police said they were searching specifically for people who assaulted the victim after he was incapacitated by a gunshot wound and clearly no longer posed a threat.

The security officer who shot Mr Zerhom thinking he was a terrorist will not be questioned.

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned the incident, which the Israeli media are calling a lynching.

“Someone who witnesses a [terror] attack needs to leave the scene and allow security and rescue forces to work,” he said. “We’re a nation of laws. No one may take the law into their hands. That’s the first rule.”

Israel remains on a top security alert after a wave of Palestinian attacks this month that have left eight Israelis and more than 40 Palestinians dead.

Most of the assailants have been Palestinian residents of the West Bank or east Jerusalem but the man who carried out the Beersheba bus station attack was an Israeli Arab Bedouin from a village close to Beersheba.

Emergency meeting

Bedouin leaders held an emergency meeting to denounce the attack.

“We utterly and unreservedly condemn this despicable act and reject violence of any sort,” said Mohammed Alnabari, mayor of the Bedouin village of Hura. “We condemn this act on behalf of the entire Bedouin society and wish to make clear that you cannot be both a terrorist and a citizen of the country; the two are inherently contradictory.”

Culture minister Miri Regev called on the government to revoke the Israeli citizenship of the mother of the gunman.

“His mother is a resident of Gaza who came to Israel to marry an Israeli citizen,” she said. “Now we need to revoke her identity card and expel her and the entire family of the murderer back to Gaza.”

Mahmoud a-Zahar, a senior Hamas figure in the Gaza Strip, praised the recent attacks and said that it was time to shift to an armed intifada uprising since all of Israeli society was armed.

Jibril Rajoub of Fatah, a senior Palestinian Authority official, told Palestinian state television that the recent attacks were acts of heroism that should be taught “to the army of martyrs in the schools”.

A Channel Two television poll on Saturday found 71 per cent of the Jewish public is dissatisfied with Mr Netanyahu’s handling of the security situation.

He decided, following intense criticism from right-wing ministers, to shelve plans for erecting concrete walls between Palestinian areas of Jerusalem and adjacent Jewish neighbourhoods. The right-wing ministers argued that the placing of such barriers gave the impression that the government was re-dividing Jerusalem along ethnic grounds.

Finance minister Moshe Kahlon, head of the centrist Kulanu, said it was right to erect the barriers.

“With all due respect, if we can better protect police or civilians – this does not determine Jerusalem’s boundaries. This is nonsense. The boundaries of Jerusalem shall be determined in the Knesset.”