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A hostile mob aggressively chased a group of young Israeli tourists into their hotel compound on the Greek island of Crete early Sunday morning.
The attackers shouted “F**k Israel” and “Free Palestine” as the group walked home from a party singing in Hebrew, according to reports.
The confrontation began around 4 a.m. in the coastal town of Malia after the assailants shouted the slogans.
“We yelled back at them, and there was an argument,” Raz, 17, told Channel 12. “We then got closer to the hotel, and suddenly we saw a bigger group arrive and that they had called more people over for backup.”
The mob hurled glass bottles before chasing the tourists onto the hotel grounds. The attackers searched for Israeli and Jewish guests, knocking on room doors, according to Israel’s National Center for Combating Antisemitism. One of the Israelis suffered a head injury after being shot with an air gun.
Locked inside their rooms, several of the tourists sent farewell messages to relatives in Israel as they feared for their lives, according to the center. Hotel staff tried to protect guests until police arrived, but only a single guard was stationed at the entrance.
“They had fire in their eyes,” Raz said. “There was only one guard at the entrance to the hotel, who couldn’t deal with them, and they just entered the hotel grounds and started looking for us, knocking on the rooms.”
Raz cut his vacation short and booked a flight back to Israel that same morning. “I didn’t want to stay there,” he said. “We were supposed to return in another two days, but after what happened, I personally did not want to and couldn’t stay in that place.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the embassy in Athens coordinated with Greek authorities during the incident, which remains under investigation. While some local residents described the violence as a clash involving intoxicated youths, the Israeli tourists said it was a targeted antisemitic attack.
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