Update
The perpetrator is a fellow student
Shahak Shapira’s brother beaten to the point of hospitalization
February 4, 2024, 5:55 p.m
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There is an attack on a Jewish student in Berlin. A pro-Palestinian fellow student is said to have hit the victim in the face and kicked him. Comedian Shahak Shapira shares that the injured man is his brother.
A 23-year-old student is said to have attacked his 30-year-old Jewish fellow student in Berlin. The suspect is said to have hit the man and kicked him. The 30-year-old was hospitalized with facial fractures, police said. The background to the crime is said to have been a dispute over the Middle East conflict.
On X, comedian Shahak Shapira wrote that the victim was his brother Lahav. “He had surgery and is doing OK,” Shapira said. However, contrary to what the police said, there was no political debate before the perpetrator struck. “He was recognized by the attacker in the bar, who followed him and his companion, spoke aggressively to them and then hit him unannounced in the face,” says Shapira, describing the crime.
Lahav and Shahak is the grandson of Amitzur Shapira, an athletics coach and member of the Israeli delegation to the Munich Olympics, who was murdered in the massacre of Israeli athletes by the terrorist organization Black September at the 1972 Olympics.
Investigators met suspects at his address
According to the police, Lahav Shapira, whose name is not mentioned in the police report, was out with a 24-year-old acquaintance in Berlin-Mitte shortly before midnight on Friday night when they met the fellow student. The two men then got into an argument. Shapira represented pro-Israel views and the 23-year-old represented pro-Palestinian views.
During the course of the discussion, the younger man is said to have suddenly punched his fellow student in the face several times, causing him to fall to the ground. He then kicked Shapira, who was lying on the ground, it goes on to say.
The suspect then initially fled. A short time later, investigators found him at his address. The officers searched his apartment based on a court order and confiscated his cell phone. State security is now investigating. The 30-year-old was immediately taken to the clinic.
The men are obviously students at the Free University of Berlin, as evidenced by the institution’s response to X. “We are deeply affected. The Free University of Berlin stands for openness and tolerance and distances itself from any form of hate speech and violence.”