The Arab riots in the mixed Israel-Arab city of Lod has calmed down but the effects remain. The latest phenomenon is Arab girls harassing frum girls in the local pool during “women only” hours.

In an incident on Tuesday, an Arab girl held a frum girl underwater as she and her friends cursed her and all Jews.

The 11-year-old girl told Kikar H’Shabbat what happened to her, with the trauma she suffered still evident in her voice. “I went with my friends to the municipal pool, which has hours for only women on Tuesday, and suddenly an Arab teenager and her friends pounced on me.”

“I was in the deep water and I almost drowned. At first, I didn’t understand what’s happening but then she pulled at me and ran her hand across my throat, to show she wanted to slaughter me. Her friend said: ‘Palestine is on your head.'”

The girl tried to swim away and leave the pool but the Arab girls still didn’t leave her alone. “We’ll kick out all the Jews from here,” they yelled. “It’s all ours, get out of here!”

“Finally, a woman noticed what was going on and called the police. When I got home I told my mother what happened and she took me to the police station.”

A frum woman, 26, in Lod, had a similar experience when she went to the pool with friends. “When we got to the pool, the Arabs cursed us that we should die and called us derogatory names. We tried to ignore them as much as possible but an Arab girl kicked me while I was swimming and I left the pool. And then my friend’s daughter emerged from the pool, looking frightened, and said that they threatened her. They harassed another girl as well.”

“We tried approaching them and asking them to stop and they began screeching: ‘We hate you and all the Jews.’ At that point, we saw it was hopeless and my friend called the police.”

“Meanwhile I videoed them with my phone and when one of them noticed, she threatened me with a fist, cursed me that I should die, and tried to take my phone. It’s a neis that the other girls managed to get her away from me.”

Another Lod woman told Kikar that her daughter also returned from the pool frightened after Arab girls made slaughtering gestures and threatened them.

“If it wasn’t for the intervention of a woman in the pool who called the police, I don’t know how it would have ended,” she said. “The Arab girls come during the women only hours and in the past, we could safely send our girls. But now it’s impossible unless they don’t let the Arab girls in on the same day. This is what we’re expecting the municipality to do – urgently!”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)