A young man who survived the Nova music festival and was wounded in a police shooting during a chase in Jerusalem is being held in hospital with his hands and feet shackled to the bed. His lawyer, Nati Rom, says police also blocked his parents from visiting him, and has asked the Jerusalem District Court to release him, citing his life circumstances and mental state.
Police say the man is suspected of drug dealing. According to the file, last week officers asked him to stop at a routine Jerusalem checkpoint, but he fled in his car. During the pursuit, officers fired at the vehicle and he was hit in the upper body and taken for medical treatment. Judge Gad Arnberg said there was no need for him to be shackled in both hands and feet if police were surrounding his bed, but the force decided to restrain him anyway, citing dangerousness.
The appeal included the man’s account of the Hamas attack on the Nova festival on October 7. He said he spent the morning at the site near Kibbutz Re’im, survived after 7.5 hours of fighting, helped rescue wounded young women, and has since suffered severe post-traumatic stress that forced him to leave work and return to his parents’ home. His parents said they would bring to court the young people their son helped save. The filing also said he was being held without any support from his family.
On Thursday, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court allowed his parents a half-hour hospital visit under police supervision, but police appealed and sought to block it. District Court Judge Mordechai Burstein accepted police’s position and sent the matter back to the Magistrate’s Court for further fact-finding before a final ruling. Rom accused police of “trampling basic rights and humanitarian needs,” while police said the suspect drove off, ran two checkpoints, rammed police vehicles, injured two volunteers, and left officers no choice but to shoot and restrain him.
