Parents and Children Injured in Assault by Muslim Family at Brooklyn Elementary School Graduation

By Hamodia Staff

A mother, father and children were assaulted by a Muslim family who shouted “Free Palestine!” “Gaza is Ours!” and “Death to Israel!” outside of a Brooklyn elementary school, the mother told New York Post.

The assaults took place at P.S. 682 in Gravesend shortly after the school’s fifth-grade graduation ceremony.

The mother, who is Jewish, had made comments about a Muslim child’s graduation outfit, which contained a Palestinian flag, saying that it is inappropriate to bring politics into a children’s school event.

The parents were taking pictures with their two children next to the school’s banner and balloons when relatives of the boy with the flag tried to push them out of the way, she said.

“We told them there was space for both families,” the mother said. “An older man turned to us and said ‘Free Palestine!’ for no reason. My husband told him this was not the time or place for that but the man cursed at him in Arabic, and shouted, “Free Palestine, Gaza is Ours, Death to Israel.”

The mother says the father was trying to deescalate the situation, when he was thrown to the ground by members of the Muslim family. He was placed in a chokehold and beaten repeatedly, including strikes from the sharp heel of a woman’s shoe.

“We consistently warned that tolerating overtly antisemitic views would create a toxic environment for Jewish students and families, inevitably leading to physical violence,” Tova Plaut, of the NYCPS Alliance group told the Post. “This has now occurred.”

Police refused initially to deal with the incident as a hate crime, but the Post reports that the Hate Crimes Task Force has decided to investigate.

The victims’ 16-year- old son tried to protect his father, but he too was assaulted, suffering a punch to the face. The mother recorded a short video of the incident before she, too, was beaten.

“A woman from the group came up from behind me, pulled me by the hair, and knocked me down on the ground, shouting, ‘I will kill you,’” she said.

The assault was stopped by two teachers who witnessed the incident.

The father was taken to Maimonides Medical Center with gashes and swelling on his head, face and body; the mother suffered a large cut on her leg and the teenaged son was left with a bloody nose.

One of the assailants, Ez-Al Dean Bazar, 26, was arrested for punching and dragging the father, according to a criminal complaint filed in the District Attorney’s office, obtained by the Post. The complaint does not mention a motive.