JERUSALEM, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli court convicted on Wednesday a Jewish man of leading an attempted murder of an Arab-Israeli man during the nationwide ethnic riots in May 2021.

The Tel Aviv District Court convicted Netanel Binyamin, 27, of an "act of terror" and attempted murder of Said Musa in Bat Yam, a suburb south of Tel Aviv. Binyamin was the main defendant in a group of 11 Jewish Israelis who were indicted for their involvement in the assault, which severely injured Musa.

The attempted lynching captured by state-owned Kan TV's live broadcast showed a mob of far-right Israelis pulling Musa from his car and beating him until he lay motionless on the ground, covered in blood.

According to Binyamin's indictment, he posted calls on WhatsApp, urging attacks on businesses run by Arab citizens of Israel. Later, he arrived with dozens of rioters at a main street in Bat Yam, where they smashed the windows of Arab-owned shops and vandalized a restaurant.

In their verdict, the three-judge panel described the incident as "a violent hate crime, in which an Arab citizen found himself forced to fight for his life in front of an angry mob of people who brutally attacked him solely because he was Arab."

The incident took place in May 2021, during the communal violence that rocked the nation amid the worst spate of Jewish-Arab violence Israel has seen in years. According to official figures, four were killed and hundreds injured as rioters throughout the country torched and vandalized cars, restaurants, businesses and bus stations.

The violence broke out amid an Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip and tensions in East Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

While Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have long been in a state of conflict, violence between Israelis and Arabs within Israel has been relatively rare. Enditem

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