Petah Tikva Man Arrested for Beating 78-year-old Woman With Hammer

A Petah Tikva man was arrested Thursday on suspicion of brutally attacking a 78-year-old woman who lives next door.

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The woman suffered severe injuries and was hospitalized in serious condition.

At about 10 A.M. on Thursday, the woman’s son called the police and urged them to come to his mother’s aid, saying a neighbor was pounding on the door of her apartment, demanding entry, and seemed to be trying to break it down. When police arrived at the apartment on Uziel Street, they found the woman bleeding heavily from severe injuries to her head, apparently caused by hammer blows.

Police then summoned a Magen David Adom ambulance crew. Paramedic Itay Tilinger said he arrived to find the woman lying in the stairwell, unconscious. The crew gave her first aid, including artificial respiration, and evacuated her to Beilinson Hospital’s trauma department.

Police sources said that when officers entered the neighbor’s apartment to make inquiries, the man appeared tense and shouted, “It was self-defense!” He told the officers he had cleaned the building’s stairwell, but the woman had refused to pay him the money he was owed for the job, which sparked an argument.

The suspect has no criminal record. The police plan to send him for psychiatric evaluation.