


A Brooklyn man was arrested on hate crime charges nearly two months after he allegedly hurled a rock at a Jewish man, snarling, “Free Palestine,” cops said.
Mohamed Habachi, 23, was cuffed Tuesday morning in connection to the Nov. 22 unprovoked attack on a 47-year-old dad of six – and slapped with multiple charges including assault and menacing, both as hate crimes, authorities said Wednesday.
The victim — who asked The Post to only identify him by his first name, Shloimy — was leaving his real estate job around 6:30 p.m. and heading to his car when cops said he was targeted by the bike-riding suspect on Montrose Avenue near South Fifth Street in Williamsburg.
“I felt something hit me,” Shloimy said in a phone interview last month. “I turned around in the direction of where I came from. There was someone sitting there on his bike and he just yelled at me and said ‘Free Palestine!’ like a bark.”
Shloimy – who suffered a cut on his right leg – said he tried to chase the suspect, who pedaled away on the bike.
“I’m Orthodox Jewish, and I see when someone chants that and throws a rock at me it’s an antisemitic hate assault in this beautiful free country we are living,” recalled the victim, who police said was wearing “traditional religious attire” at the time of the assault.
“He definitely targeted me,” Shloimy said of the suspect. “In fact, there were other people standing in the vicinity. They were not Jews and he wasn’t doing anything to them.”
The city has seen a surge in antisemitic crimes since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in early October, according to NYPD data.
“It’s just scary what’s happening,” Shloimy said, adding the rise in such crimes had left him feeling “very unsafe.”
“Someone minding his business and walking in the street in Brooklyn has no connection to anything happening elsewhere unless it’s a violent attacker and he just wants to attack,” he added.
Habachi, of Brighton Beach, was arraigned Wednesday morning and ordered held on $1,500 cash bail or $10,000 bond.