Pro-Palestinian organizations have launched a European advertising campaign calling for the release of five Arab youths who are suspected of throwing rocks at a car six months ago, causing grievous head injuries to Adelle Biton, a Jewish three-year-old.
In a large scale rally in London last Friday, protesters called for the release of the “the Hares boys,” as they are now known. The five youths are from the village of Hares in Samaria, near Ariel. The central message in rally was that the youths are being held “for no reason,” because of “an accident they had nothing to do with.”
Meanwhile, Adele's father Rafi has gone of a trip to Ukraine, where he prayed for his daughter's recovery next to the tomb of the Baal Shem Tov, founder the hassidic movement, at Mezibuz. Adelle was named after the daughter of the Baal Shem Tov.
"We pray that the new year will bring with it new beginnings as well, and we are heartened by the small improvements in Adelle's condition,” Rafi said. The toddler is now being allowed to go home from the hospital on Sabbaths and is showing growing alertness, he said.
Young members of the Chabad-Lubavitch hassidic sect have been accompanying Rafi Biton ever since the terror attack.
“In the difficult days of the hospitalization,” he recalls, “we issued a kind of special plea to the Baal Shem Tov. We spoke to the Chabad emissary at Mezibuz in a conference telephone call and asked that the Baal Shem Tov recommend Adelle in the heavens. This was when there was a serious downturn in her condition.”
Adelle was in critical condition for weeks after the rock ambush on the car her mother, Adva, was driving. She was first allowed out of the hospital in July, but continues to receive treatments and physiotherapy. Her mother said that Adele is “working well in physiotherapy, cooperating, moving her limbs, raising her head and carrying out instructions in a good way.”
The attack in which Adelle was injured was part of a huge wave of rock and firebomb attacks that occurred on the roads of Judea and Samaria in the year's early months. After MKs demanded that the IDF crack down on rock throwers, there was a significant decrease in the number of such attacks.
Adelle's mother Adva, 32, was also injured in the attack, along with her other two daughters: Avigail, 4, and Naama, 5.