It has taken at least two reports to police after a number of beatings, thefts and threats to elderly Holocaust survivors at a residence in northern Israel before the suspected attackers were finally arrested.
On Thursday, the accused abusers were to appear before the Haifa Magistrate’s Court as police request an extension of remand.
“Elderly Holocaust survivors, some not mentally well, went through a series of abuses” at the hands of a family of Palestinian collaborators with Israel, according to a police report filed in Haifa on Wednesday. The family lives on the same street as the residence in which the seniors are housed, according to the court papers.
“What we heard there was simply horrendous,” said one high-ranking police officer quoted by the Hebrew-language Yediot Acharanot newspaper.
“Their credit cards were stolen, they were forced to step off the sidewalk and walk on the road, they were beaten and their property was vandalized.”
A search of the suspects’ homes turned up jewelry, cell phones, work tools and other items that were suspected of being stolen. Police seized several of the family’s vehicles.
According to the police report filed with Haifa Police by the organization director and security officer who work at the residence for Holocaust survivors, employees were not exempted from the hostilities.
The seven members of the Palestinian family also vandalized vehicles belonging to employees of the organization that runs the residence, threatening the workers and assaulting them in several cases as well. Some of the suspects are known to law enforcement officials from previous incidents.