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One of the wounded in Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem in Jerusalem.
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Two hospitalized in serious condition in Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. Police launch investigation.

By Nir Hasson | Jul. 26, 2014 | 9:01 PM

Two Palestinian youths were reportedly assaulted by a Jewish mob in Jerusalem on Friday evening.

The two were seriously wounded, and were hospitalized in the Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem in Jerusalem.

The two, Amir Shwiki and Samer Mahfouz, both 20-year-old and from Beit Khanina, were walking to a Light Rail station after the Ramadan dinner to look for Shwiki's worker ID when they were attacked.

"A man came from the direction of Neve Ya'akov (a Jerusalem neighborhood)," Mahfouz told Haaretz. "He said give me a cigarette. I told him I don't have any, and he heard I'm Arab and went away, coming back with his friends, maybe 12 people. They had sticks and iron bars and they hit us over the head," he said.

According to a description given to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel by the victims, the attackers, armed with iron bars and baseball bats, beat the two until they lost consciousness. According to the victims, police officers that arrived at the scene did not call an ambulance, and they were instead evacuated by passersby to receive medical treatment at a Beit Khanina clinic. They were later rushed to Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem in serious condition.

The attack is the latest in a series of attacks and harassments of Palestinians in Jerusalem in recent weeks, the most serious of which was the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian teen from Shoafat.

Jerusalem police said an investigation has been launched. "Yesterday a woman called and said she noticed two minorities and several Jews in the area and heard shouts and understood there was an attack," the police statement said. "A police cruiser arrived and called an ambulance, but the family refused to wait for the ambulance and evacuated them independently."