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New York Post
07-08-2025
- New York Post
Retired doctor, 94, randomly punched at NYC Apple store
A 94-year-old retired doctor was randomly punched by a 'crazy' attacker at an Upper East Side Apple store this week – as the nonagenarian fears 'this may happen again to me or to somebody else.' Moshe Labi had just bought a new Apple Watch at the store on Madison Avenue near East 74th Street around 5:45 p.m. Tuesday, alongside his 78-year-old girlfriend Evelia Butt, when the menace – who had already started trouble with others – blindsided him in the vestibule. 'We were in [the store] for a long time, and then we went to leave, and … there was some ruckus going on. Somebody was doing something to somebody else,' Labi told The Post Thursday. 'So I told [Evelia], 'Let's wait for a second until everything clears.'' Advertisement 4 Moshe Labi, 94, was randomly slugged in the face by an unhinged attacker in the vestibule of the Upper East Side Apple store. Robert Miller 'And we stood there until everything cleared, and then within seconds, somebody walked in and punched me in the face,' Labi said. '[Evelia] immediately ran after him, and in the meantime I was falling.' Labi said he was lucky to have been standing against the wall, which 'slowed down' his fall. Advertisement 'Otherwise, it could have been much worse. I had hit my head, hit my back, and the punch was really like this – the whole thing,' he said as he put his fist to his jaw. 'Subconsciously, I'm still living the experience because it was traumatic, and finding myself unable to react the way that I would have liked to do … this is kind of depressing,' Labi said. '[Hopefully] in days and weeks I will recover completely, but I'm still under that feeling of insecurity, that maybe if I walked on the street, this may happen again to me or to somebody else.' Born in Libya, Labi fled with his family when the Nazis evaded North Africa, and has since lived a storied life. 4 The much-younger assailant, apparently already fuming over something else, slugged Labi in the jaw. Robert Miller Advertisement He moved to Sudan, Egypt, and then Italy, where he went to medical school, before traveling to Israel, where he fought in the Independence War. He then moved to the Big Apple, where he worked as an internist and eventually the director of a medical group before retiring at 89. Labi also recently published a memoir, 'Benghazi, Tel Aviv, New York: A Journey from Adversity to Success.' His medical background helped him to realize that he didn't need to go to the hospital after the attack, because there was 'no blood' and he had no trouble breathing, so he went with officers to the local precinct station house. Advertisement 4 The still-shaken Labi wore his new Apple watch as he spoke with The Post Thursday. Robert Miller Labi said at one point he was also a martial arts instructor, but admitted the lanky menace 'surprised me.' He said he doesn't think it would have been possible to 'reason' with his attacker, who he believed was 'deranged in one way or the other' and 'really quote-unquote 'crazy.'' 'I really cannot blame what the city [is doing] but there is definitely a need for some department of some people to take care of people like this guy, because there are more than one obviously walking around the city,' Labi added. 'And I can [say] I think I was lucky. It could have been much worse.' 4 Labi's girlfriend ran after the menace, but he got away and was still on the loose Thursday. Kristy Leibowitz Meanwhile, Butt told The Post a store employee informed her the assailant was angry because his credit card was declined when he attempted to buy a phone. And later, 'he was harassing some woman that was parked right there in front of the store,' she said. 'These people have to be caught,' she said. 'He could have done it to somebody else and to have to do this to a 94-year-old, it's really shocking.' Advertisement The attacker fled north on Madison Avenue and had not been caught by Thursday, police said. He is described as having a dark complexion and slim build, stood at least 6 feet tall and was last seen wearing a black T-shirt, blue pants and tan shoes. Anyone with information on the crime is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website or on X @NYPDTips.
Otago Daily Times
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Having to change course, and not leaving
A zombie dream has taken over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, or at least the extreme right part of it, which is the tail that wags the rest. It is the dream that was once called "transfer" and is now known as "relocation". In its broadest form, it includes the expulsion of all Arabs from the lands now controlled by Israel. Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's current finance minister, is the most articulate exponent of this dream, and he sees the war in Gaza as a heaven-sent opportunity to make it real. In February, he threatened to bring down the coalition if the prime minister did not break the ceasefire and stop all food, fuel, water and humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Palestinians should see only "fire and brimstone" from Israel until the Strip was completely occupied and its population expelled. Netanyahu complied. In March, Smotrich expanded his ambition to include the West Bank as well, warning its 3million residents that if they continued to defy Israeli authority, they would face the same fate as the Palestinians of Gaza. "Their cities too will be uninhabitable ruins," he said. "Their residents will be forced to migrate and seek a new life in other countries." And in May, he hailed the new Israeli ground offensive to seize control of all of Gaza, saying that in six months Gaza would be "totally destroyed". The Palestinians there would be "despairing", understanding that there was no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza, and would "be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places." A thoroughly nasty man, then, and so are a number of his Cabinet colleagues, but they are not being realistic. All that is very unlikely to happen. Israel's only real chance to create a Jewish state in all the territory between the Jordan River and the sea was in the Independence War of 1948. Jewish fighters did manage to grab five-sixths of the territory of the former British mandate of Palestine (the UN partition had given Israel only half), but the Egyptian and Jordanian armies managed to hold on to the other sixth. That other sixth became the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, populated by resident and refugee Palestinians. It was conquered by Israel in the 1967 war, but it was already too late to incorporate those territories into Israel. By then, the ban on changing borders by force, already included in the 1945 UN Charter, had been accepted by almost every country in the world. Ignorant people mock international law, claiming that it is powerless, but it is the reason that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are still separate territories "occupied" by Israel. Well, half the reason. The other half is that they are full of Palestinian Arabs, 5 million of them, and Israel only wants the territory, not the Palestinians. The dream of a Jewish Israel "from the river to the sea" never entirely died on the right of Israeli politics, and the apocalyptic tone of much Israeli political discourse these days has brought it roaring back to life. It is, however, just as delusional as ever. The current strategy of the Israel Defence Force (IDF), if such an incoherent wish-list is worthy of the name, involves starving the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip into leaving the entire territory. First, the 2 million inhabitants must be reduced to desperation by allowing no food into the Strip (11 weeks, done). Then, on the verge of starvation, they will all be forced down to a small piece of land in the far south of the Strip near the Egyptian border. No food will be delivered elsewhere; they will have to move south to get it. This phase is now beginning. There will be a "minimal" amount of food available there, in Netanyahu's words, distributed by Israeli contractors and guarded by IDF soldiers. Rather than stay in such dreadful circumstances, the starving Palestinians will then vanish across the border, leaving the Strip free for Israeli resettlement (or Trump's "Riviera on the Mediterranean", if he still wants it). This is a cruel fantasy, not a strategy. Egypt, well aware of Netanyahu's intentions, will seal the border tight and allow no Palestinians to cross. If Israel holds 2 million people there for long, the death toll from hunger and disease will soon reach a thousand a day. Even Israel's closest friends and strongest supporters will rebel. It's already starting. France, Britain and Canada have condemned Israel's behaviour and threatened sanctions. The European Union is "reviewing" its free-trade agreement with Israel. Even Donald Trump has voiced some concern. Israel will have to change course, or it will become an international pariah. And still the Palestinians won't leave. • Gwynne Dyer is an independent London journalist.
