Burglars assault elderly couple, lock them into freezing basement

An elderly couple was savagely beaten Monday and held captive in their basement for two hours by burglars who broke into their house in the village of Beit Meir in the center of the country.

The four masked men entered the house of Yitzhak and Miriam Boker overnight.

"I woke up to see what all the screaming was about when three men, all with masks on their faces, jumped me," Yitzhak Boker said. "They wanted to drag me to the basement but I wanted to go upstairs to see what they were doing to my wife."

Boker said his assailants spoke Arabic and that one of them threatened to hit him on the head with a crowbar. After a struggle, Boker's assailants overcame his resistance and dragged him to the basement. "They even told me which [criminal] organization they belong to," he added. "But I was so distressed that I forgot."

When they got to the basement, they tied Boker's hands and legs. "I could not move right or left. After a while they brought down my wife and stationed a guard to watch us."

Meanwhile, the other three robbers began rummaging through the couple's things upstairs in search of valuables or a safe.

Boker asked his assailants for a pair of pants because of the bitter cold.

"They brought me a pair but I could not put them on because I was tied," he said. "They did not notice that there was a knife in one of the pockets with which my wife later cut the ropes."

The masked men threatened to kill the couple unless they told them where their safe was, despite Boker's claims that they did not have one. After a few hours, the men escaped with a few hundred shekels and some jewelry, leaving the couple locked in the basement.

"My wife banged on the door and shouted 'let us out,' but they had already gone," Boker said. "She cut the ropes and I got out through a tiny window. I then ran around to open the door for my wife from outside." The two were taken to the hospital to receive treatment for their wounds.

"Thank God, I have only a superficial wound," Boker said. "But my wife will undergo a CAT scan in Jerusalem tomorrow."

He said he had no idea why the robbers chose to break into his house. "I have no money at home, I am a pensioner. I make a living from a chicken pen."

Police believe that the gang intended to burgle a different house that apparently has a safe but mistakenly broke into the Boker's house.

Boker said his village, which is near the West Bank, has often fallen victim to thefts from its Palestinian neighbors. "I had a thriving flock of sheep, but each night they would come and steal 30 of them. The police were helpless; they warned me not to get into trouble with the robbers and, heaven forbid, fire at them."