Elderly man beaten for removing banner supporting Rabin’s killer, suffers brain bleed

A 75-year-old man has been hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage after he was assaulted last week for taking down a banner that called for the release of Yigal Amir, the far-right activist who assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, the hospitalized man’s family and lawyers said.

Footage from the assault on Ilan Manes last Tuesday showed several youths — reportedly right-wing extremists — dragging and kicking him after he removed the sign at the Hemed Intersection on Route 1, near his home in Mevasseret Zion, just west of Jerusalem.

Manes filed a complaint with police, but almost a week later, no one has been arrested over the assault, according to the Protest Detainee Legal Support Front, a group of lawyers who offer pro bono services to anti-government protesters.

According to the group, Manes found his left hand to be unresponsive while he was working at home on Thursday, two days after the assault. The same thing happened again, “even more seriously,” on Saturday, at which point his family took him to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital.

He was expected to undergo brain surgery at the hospital on Monday night, his daughter Talia told Army Radio.

She said he was responsive, but “lost consciousness several times yesterday.”

אילן מנס, שהותקף כשניסה להוריד את השלט ׳ישוחרר יגאל עמיר׳, מאושפז במחלקה נוירולוגית עם דימום במוח

ביום חמישי האחרון בעודו עובד בבית הבין אילן שמשהו לא תקין. אצבעות יד שמאל שלו הפסיקו לפעול וכל מה שאחז בו נפל. בשבת המקרה חזר על עצמו ואף באופן קשה יותר. הוא פונה על ידי משפחתו לבית… pic.twitter.com/wMQwNmJaN4

— אלימות ישראל (@Alimut_Israel) August 2, 2026

“He couldn’t deal with the sign,” his daughter said, referring to the banner over Route 1.

“He understood he was getting into some kind of confrontation, but he didn’t imagine it would end like this,” she said.

Talia noted that her father, a former lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Forces, had been present at the Tel Aviv peace rally at which Rabin spoke shortly before he was gunned down on November 4, 1995.

Amir, an extremist Jew who opposed the 1993 Oslo Accords under which Israel was transferring West Bank territory to Palestinian control, assassinated Rabin.

Amir claimed religious legitimacy for the murder. He has said he was prompted by the 1992 election results that brought the Labor leader to power, and that he was encouraged to do so by the massacre of 29 Palestinians by Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein in Hebron in 1994.

The mass peace rally at which Rabin was shot was called to highlight opposition to violence and to showcase public support for Rabin’s efforts to negotiate with the Palestinians.

Recent years have seen an increase in the number of calls for the release of Amir.

The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.

There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.

As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can't do this alone. If you value work like this, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.

— Stav Levaton, military reporter

We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.

That’s why we started the Times of Israel – to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.

So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.

For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.

Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel