The young Gaza Strip Arab who allegedly stabbed to death 15-year-old Helena Rapp in Bat Yam on Sunday was remanded in custody for 15 days Tuesday by the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court.
The suspect, Fuad Abdul Atti Amran, 19, allegedly confessed to police and implicated an alleged accomplice who was remanded for five days.
Rapp was assaulted while waiting for a bus to school outside her home Sunday morning. The attack followed the non-fatal stabbing of a yeshiva student in Jerusalem last Friday and was the third time this month that a Jew was victim of a knife attack by an Arab in Israel.
As the judicial process began, heavily reinforced police patrolled the streets of Bat Yam, Rishon le-Zion, Holon and other communities in the Greater Tel Aviv area to forestall renewed anti-Arab rioting.
The mood was sullen but quiet after two days of vigilantism. Arabs were attacked on sight by bands of Jewish youths who roamed the streets chanting “death to the Arabs.”
They were attacked in Holon where Rapp was buried Monday, before and after her funeral. In Rishon le-Zion, a Jewish crowd attacked and inflicted serious stab wounds on an Israeli Arab from Nazareth, whom they claimed they mistook for a Gaza Arab.
The Gaza Strip was sealed off for three days Sunday by the Israel Defense Force, mainly for the protection of its own residents. Thousands of day laborers who seek employment in Israel were unable to go to work. But they may well have been seriously hurt had they ventured into the Tel Aviv area.
Meanwhile, nine Jewish youths were detained by court order to face possible assault charges.
Jewish violence was incited in large measure by members of the extremist Kach movement, followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose stated goal was to rid Israel of all Arabs.
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