An Eritrean migrant, shot by a security guard and kicked by an angry Israeli crowd that mistook him for a gunman, was identified on Monday as one of the dead from an attack on a bus station in the southern city of Beersheba.
The Eritrean agricultural worker was named by his employer as Mila Abtum. In what some Israeli media described as a lynching, captured on amateur video on Sunday, the attack on Abtum underscored a mounting sense of panic and anger over a wave of Palestinian attacks that shows no sign of abating.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose right-wing government has deployed soldiers to reinforce municipal police and encouraged Israeli civilians with gun licenses to go about armed, warned against vigilantism.
The almost three weeks of violence has killed 41 Palestinians, including assailants and demonstrators at anti-Israeli protests, eight Israelis and now one Eritrean. It was set off in part by Palestinians’ anger over what they see as increased Jewish encroachment on Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque complex.
The U.S. Department of State noted the Israeli government announced an investigation into the attack. Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner repeated statements by the mayor of Beersheba.
“Acknowledging the heightened sense of fear among Israeli citizens and amid this ongoing violence I would just note what the mayor of Beersheba said to his citizens which is that they shouldn’t take the law into their own hands.” (Reuters)
