Mistaken identity leads to shooting of Israeli visitors in Florida

Tuesday 18 February 2025 - 08:04

A man in Florida has been charged with attempted murder following the shooting of two Israeli visitors, whom he allegedly mistook for Palestinians, according to police.

The suspect, 27-year-old Mordechai Brafman, faces two counts of attempted murder and was taken into custody after the incident on Miami Beach. According to an arrest report from Miami-Dade County Corrections, Brafman admitted to opening fire because he believed the victims were Palestinians.

The victims, identified by local media as an Israeli father and son, survived the attack. One sustained a shoulder injury, while the other was shot in the forearm. Speaking to WPLG Local 10, one of the victims, Ari Revay, recounted how the attacker fired at them from a passing truck, describing the sudden gunfire as, “‘Boom, boom, boom’—he just started shooting.”

This incident comes amid a rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic violence since the outbreak of the Gaza war on October 7, 2023. Advocacy groups report a surge in hate crimes, including attacks on Palestinian Americans.

Notable incidents include the October 14, 2023, murder of six-year-old Palestinian Wadea al-Fayoume, who was stabbed 26 times by his family’s landlord in Chicago. Additionally, a woman in Texas allegedly attempted to drown a three-year-old Palestinian-American girl, and three young Palestinian men were shot near a university in Vermont in November 2023.

Nihad Awad, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), condemned the violence, stating that such crimes reflect the growing hostility toward Palestinian Americans and Palestinians globally. He urged U.S. policymakers to stop fueling anti-Palestinian sentiment, linking the rising hate crimes to broader global conflicts, including the Gaza war.