Two Israelis shot in Miami by man who thought he was targeting Palestinians

A man who was reportedly hunting Palestinians was arrested over the weekend after shooting two Israelis in Miami Beach, mistaking them for Palestinians. 

Mordechai Brafman, 27, was detained on Saturday night and faces two counts of attempted second-degree murder. 

Surveillance footage showed Brafman's truck making a U-turn, stopping directly in front of a vehicle, exiting his truck and shooting at two people inside the vehicle.

He shot at the vehicle 17 times with a semi-automatic handgun, the arrest report stated.

One of the victims was wounded in the shoulder, while the other suffered a graze wound on the forearm. Brafman, described by Israeli outlet Ynet as a "Florida Jew", was arrested shortly after the shooting. 

According to the arrest report, Brafman told police in an interview: "While I was driving my truck, I saw two Palestinians and shot and killed both." 

Neither of the victims were killed, and the police said they were visitors from Israel. 

Citing a local Instagram account that posts about Jewish life, the Miami Herald reported that the victims were an Israeli father and son. 

Police confirmed that the victims had no prior connection to Brafman.

'Hate crime charges'

The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) called for federal hate crime charges to be brought following the shooting. 

"We urge state and federal law enforcement authorities to bring hate crime charges in this case based on the alleged perpetrator’s statements to police that reportedly indicate an anti-Palestinian motive," Cair's Florida communications director Wilfredo Amr Ruiz said. 

'It is the alleged shooter’s reportedly bias-motivated actions, not the ethnicity of the victims, that should be the determining factor for charges in this disturbing case'

- Wilfredo Amr Ruiz, CAIR

"It is the alleged shooter’s reportedly bias-motivated actions, not the actual ethnicity of the victims, that should be the determining factor for charges in this disturbing case."

There has been a marked spike in Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian attacks in the United States since war broke out in Gaza 16 months ago. 

In October 2023, a six-year-old Palestinian-American was fatally stabbed 26 times and his mother seriously wounded in Illinois, in an attack officials say was linked to the Israel-Palestine war and because they identified as Muslim.

Wadea al-Fayoume, a six-year-old boy, was stabbed 26 times and had a 12-inch serrated military knife with a seven-inch blade lodged in his body.

Two months later, three Palestinian-American college students were speaking Arabic and wearing keffiyehs, a scarf synonymous with Palestinian solidarity, and were en route to dinner when they were shot by a gunman in Burlington, Vermont.

One of them is now paralysed from the chest down and may not be able to walk again.