LONDON: Karem Rohana, an Italian Palestinian influencer and activist, was assaulted in Rome on Tuesday night in what authorities suspect was a hate crime.
The 35-year-old had just returned to Italy from a visit to Jerusalem when he was attacked by two unidentified persons while on his way to a friend’s house in the Ostiense area, south of the capital’s city center.
Describing the experience in a series of messages posted to his Instagram account shortly after the attack, Rohana wrote: “I was just brutally beaten with kicks and punches in the back of my head. They hit me hard, and I can’t move.”
He added: “They hurt me badly; they really wanted to kill me, otherwise you don’t get kicked in the face. It was a punitive expedition.”
Rohana, who lives in Florence and works as a speech therapist, had returned to Italy after being stranded in Jerusalem for several days during a trip to the region as a result of flight cancellations in the aftermath of the attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7 and the subsequent Israeli military attacks on the Gaza Strip.
He had been sharing his experiences and location on social media, and hinted that his online presence and activity might have made him a target. Authorities in Italy are investigating the attack. Italian newspaper L’Indipendente reported that police have ruled out robbery as a motive and, given its nature, suspect it might have been a hate crime.
Benedetta Sabene, a journalist and friend of Rohana who was with him at the time of the assault, described it as a “very serious hate crime” and highlighted the growing number of such crimes and other incidents in Italy targeting members of the Palestinian and Jewish communities, or those who voice support for them, during the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
In one recent incident, UNICEF volunteers in Milan were verbally and physically assaulted while they collected donations to aid the people of Gaza.
Meanwhile, events to publicize the launch of a book by Patrick Zaki, an Italian Egyptian researcher who endured 22 months of pretrial detention in Cairo for writing an article in which he addressed the challenges faced by the Christian community in Egypt, were canceled in the past few weeks due to critical comments he made on social media about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Rohana, known as “Karem from Haifa” on Instagram, has been using the platform for some time to discuss the Palestinian cause and events in the West Bank and Gaza.
While in Jerusalem, he posted messages highlighting the dire living conditions of the people of Gaza and reporting on the bombings and other attacks on the territory by the Israeli military. He said that while he was there, his Instagram account had been blocked seven times.
