An Arab boy from Jerusalem who ran at a Jewish man's car to throw a stone at the windshield and was hit now claims he does not remember the incident. Earlier, he had made detailed accusations regarding the incident in an interview with Ynet.
However, in a more recent interview with the pan-Arab daily Al-Sharq il-Awsat, the boy, 12-year-old Omran Mansour, said, “I only remember seeing the car coming to run me over, and I don't remember anything else... I don't know what happened, I don't remember.”
The change in Mansour's testimony followed a meeting of the Knesset's Child Welfare Committee during which MKs suggested that the parents of children who participate in stone-throwing attacks should be detained for questioning. There have also been calls to detain Mansour and other children involved in the ambush.
Mansour and several other Arab boys and teenagers gathered last Friday to ambush Jewish drivers as they drove through the Jerusalem neighborhood of Shiloach (Silwan). Several professional media photographers were at the scene; none informed police of what was happening.
Motorist David Be'eri was one of those targeted for attack. Seeing young children standing in front of his car with rocks, Be'eri swerved to the side, hitting his horn in warning. At that point, Mansour and another boy ran into the street and in front of Be'eri's car to throw rocks at his windshield. They managed to throw their rocks, but were then hit and lightly injured.
Be'eri has stated that he had no intention of hitting the boys, and was simply trying to escape the ambush in order to protect his own young son, who was sitting in his car.
In his first media interviews, before he claimed amnesia, Mansour accused Be'eri of deliberately trying to run him down, for no reason. “I didn't have time to run away, I didn't even have time to signal him... It was clear that he was doing it on purpose. I was on the sidewalk, so there's no way it wasn't deliberate,” he told Ynet. He also claimed that he had not been throwing rocks at Be'eri.
His initial claims were disproved by a video of the incident, which clearly shows that he had run into the middle of the road to throw stones when he was hit.