(JTA) — Israeli police said they were searching for a Jewish man who is accused of assaulting a leader of the Rabbis for Human Rights organization near Nablus.
The man, who The Jerusalem Post reported was described as a right-wing Jewish-Israeli activist, on Friday allegedly lunged while holding a knife at Rabbi Arik Ascherman, who was not injured. The alleged assailant has not been named.
Ascherman was helping Palestinians harvest olives near the settlement of Itamar, not far from the West Bank city of Nablus, according to a spokesman for the group.
“The activist ran toward him [Ascherman] in a threatening way with a drawn knife,” a spokesman for Rabbis for Human Rights said.
A spokesman for the Judea and Samaria district of the Israel Police said that Ascherman and other Israeli left-wing activists remained in the grove after Palestinian farmers had finished their work there. An altercation broke out between the left-wing and right-wing activists, the police said.
