A 78-year-old veteran selling poppies was assaulted when he found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time during an anti-Israel protest in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, the Daily Mail reported.
Jim Henderson was attacked while selling Remembrance Day poppies at a stall at the Waverley Station on Saturday. He was wearing his red beret from his military service at the time of the assault.
About 1,200 anti-Israel activists came out to demonstrate against Israel's retaliation for the Hamas massacre of October 7. The protesters apparently mistook Henderson for a pro-Israel activists and began to punch and kick the elderly war veteran. Railway staff forced the attackers to back off and extirpated Henderson from the situation.
"I was getting shoved backwards, in danger of falling, and one of them stood on my foot and split my toe," Henderson said following the incident. "'So I thought I had got to get the money out of here. So I went down, and as I bent down someone punched me in the back. And then I got another punch in my side."
He described the protest he witnessed as "chanting. Saying it's all about the British Government, British people, Jews."
Police eventually closed the station entirely as a result of the demonstration.
Anti-Israel demonstrations around the world have grown increasingly violent in the last week. In Sydney, Australia, a Jewish man was brutally beaten by multiple anti-Israel activists after he tore down a sign that was already half torn and advertised a rally that had already happened.
In Los Angeles, an elderly Jewish man was murdered by an anti-Israel activist who hit him over the head with a bullhorn.