Police in Italy last week arrested a 33-year-old Egyptian man suspected of assaulting a Jewish boy on the street in Rome after ordering him to take off his kippah, Italian media reported Monday.
The Jan. 29 incident in the Italian capital’s center happened in view of the boy’s mother, the Castelli Notizie news site reported. The man allegedly shouted at the boy to take off his kippah, before hitting him, according to the report, which cited police.
The suspect, who is homeless and does not have a criminal record, was arrested near the scene of the incident in the vicinity of Piazza della Repubblica. He was identified using CCTV footage of the incident, as well as of another incident, in which he allegedly threatened a shopkeeper with a piece of broken glass. The man is in Italy legally, the report said, but immigration authorities are now looking into his status.
Like many other countries in Europe and beyond, Italy has seen an increase in antisemitic incidents after Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded southern Israel, triggering a regional war and an explosion on anti-Jewish sentiment worldwide.
The Observatory of Antisemitism of the Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center Foundation in Milan documented 454 incidents in 2023, which was nearly double the tally from 2022. The Observatory has not yet published a report for 2024.
