Yashar Party chairman Gadi Eisenkot called on Police Commissioner Insp.-Gen. Danny Levi to order an immediate investigation into the assault of a 76-year-old party activist who remains hospitalized after undergoing neurological surgery.
Ilan Mans, who heads the party’s Mevaseret Zion branch, was attacked last week near the Hemed Interchange on Highway 1 after attempting to remove a banner calling for the release of Yigal Amir, who murdered prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.
Footage from the scene showed several people surrounding Mans and assaulting him after he fell to the ground.
Mans was taken to Hadassah-University Medical Center in Ein Kerem with bleeding in his brain. Eisenkot said in a letter sent to Levy on Monday that Mans’s condition had required neurological surgery and that he remained hospitalized.
Attack could foreshadow political violence in run-up to election
“Violence of this kind, 84 days before election day, could be a grave indication of what awaits us during this period and cannot be tolerated,” Eisenkot wrote.
He demanded a “comprehensive, thorough and rapid” investigation and called on police to arrest those responsible and bring them to justice.
Eisenkot said authorities must send a clear message, particularly during the election campaign, that political violence would not be accepted.
The incident follows a campaign calling for Amir’s release. A similar banner was displayed at the Ein Hemed Interchange in late June.