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by Ruthie Blum
A victim of physical and sexual assault. Photo: Wikia.
The Israeli Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday that it would recognize a young woman who was sexually assaulted in Jerusalem nine years ago as a “hostile action casualty” — or victim of Arab terrorism — the Hebrew news site nrg reported.
According to the report, the relevant authority within the Defense Ministry finally agreed to characterize as a “hostile action” the February 2008 beating and sexual abuse of a 25-year-old Jewish student — at the hands of a gang of Palestinian youths in a public park near the Valley of Hinnom — after establishing that the crime had been “nationalistically motivated.”
The young men, who were convicted of robbing, battering and committing indecent acts on the woman — leaving her with several injuries, including a broken nose — targeted her as a Jew, the Defense Ministry determined.
The Benefits for Victims of Hostility Law, drafted in 1970, entitles “hostile action casualties and their families to monetary remuneration and various benefits to assist and support them in their recovery, such as monthly payments, rehabilitation, annual grants and lump-sum grants.”
As The Algemeiner reported, the first time in Israel’s history that a case of sexual assault was recognized as an act of war or terrorism was in October 2015.
At the time, the Defense Ministry ruled that a young Jerusalem woman who had been sexually assaulted at age 14 by four Palestinian teens would be eligible for all the benefits granted to “hostile action casualties.”
That incident took place in June 2006, when the boys, then minors, followed the girl one evening while she was out walking by herself near the Pisgat Ze’ev shopping mall. As she passed a bus stop, they rode up to her on their bicycles and began touching her, tugging at her shirt and laughing. After that, they blocked her way, hit her and shoved her down a slope in the road, where they sexually assaulted her. The girl managed to escape and later helped police apprehend her attackers.
According to the Defense Ministry ruling, “The site of the attack and the general atmosphere of tension in that area related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the type of event and the identity of the attackers — together constitute a reasonable basis to assume that it was an act of hostility.”
