US Jewish man fires 17 shots at 2 Israelis; victim posts 'Death to Arabs'

Mordechai Brafman, 27, fired at two Israelis 17 times, thinking they were Palestinians. (Photo/Miami-Dade County Corrections)

A man who fired 17 rounds at a vehicle in Miami Beach, Florida on Saturday night has told investigators he did so because he believed the occupants were Palestinian, according to arrest documents cited by local US media.

In a bizarre twist, one of the victims later labelled the attack anti-Semitic and called for "Death to Arabs" in a racist Facebook post.

Mordechai Brafman, 27, was arrested and charged with two counts of attempted murder, officials said.

Surveillance footage shows him making a U-turn at 48th Street around 9.30 pm (0230GMT Sunday), stopping in front of the vehicle of two victims — father and son — and firing a barrage of bullets with a semi-automatic handgun.

In a police interview later, Brafman stated that while he was driving his truck, "he saw two Palestinians and shot and killed both," according to the arrest form.

However, both Israeli tourists survived, with one suffering a gunshot wound to the shoulder and the other grazed on the forearm.

The victims told Local 10 News: "It was a truck passing next to (us)," Ari Rabey said in Hebrew, with his cousin translating. "'Boom, boom, boom' and he randomly started shooting."

Rabey added, "He put the window down, driver's seat and just blasted (us)."

Rabey's father said Brafman tried shooting them from the back of his car. The bullet "went through right next to (my) ear because (I) was the driver," he said through his relative.

Rabey, who was hit in the shoulder, later posted on his Facebook page about the shooting.

"Dear Jews," he began and then explained that he was in Miami with his father.

"They tried to kill us for nationalistic reasons," he wrote calling it anti-Semitic while ending his post with a "Death to Arabs" chant.

An Israeli man has been arrested in Miami for shooting two Jewish men—an incident that some in the Jewish community are already labeling as antisemitism. (@NBCNews Miami)

The twist? The accused reportedly told police he thought he was shooting at two Palestinians.

Even more… pic.twitter.com/RxE0ySmZHN
— TheMuslimLawyer (@faisalkutty) February 16, 2025

CAIR seeks federal hate crime charges

Meanwhile, the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Florida) has called for federal hate crime charges into the incident.

In a statement, CAIR-Florida Communications Director Wilfredo Amr Ruiz said hate crime charges must be brought based on the suspect's statements to police, which apparently indicates "an anti-Palestinian motive."

"It is the alleged shooter's reportedly bias-motivated actions, not the actual ethnicity of the victims, that should be the determining factor for charges in this disturbing case," said Amr Ruiz.

Brafman remains at the Miami-Dade Corrections' Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, according to the Miami Herald.

The discrimination and attacks against Muslims and Palestinians in US has peaked since 2023, driven by rising Islamophobia and bias amid Israel's genocidal war on Gaza in which nearly 62,000 Palestinians have been killed, over 1,10,000 wounded and most of the 2.3 million people uprooted multiple times.

In 2024, CAIR released its civil rights report which revealed the highest number of complaints it has ever received in its 30-year history. Titled "Fatal: The Resurgence of Anti-Muslim Hate," the report documented 8,061 complaints.

"Nearly half of all complaints received in 2023 were reported in the final three months of the year," it said.

Ruiz, meanwhile, added that earlier this month, CAIR-FL called for the censure of Palm Bay City Councilman Chandler Langevin for his inflammatory and xenophobic anti-Muslim remarks, in which he claimed that Muslims "do not belong" in the United States.

Last year, CAIR-FL called for the Florida legislature to censure state Representative Randy Fine after he posted an anti-Muslim tweet celebrating the murder of Turkish-American human rights activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi and appeared to call for more killing.

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Source: TRT