Miami, February 17 (RHC)-- A pro-Israel extremist has shot at two Israeli tourists in Miami Beach after he mistakenly took them for Palestinians.

Mordechai Brafman, 28 years-of-age, was arrested and charged with two counts of attempted murder on Saturday after he shot at a car he thought it belonged to two Palestinians.

Brafman, who was driving his car, stopped directly in front of the victims’ car, exited his vehicle and shot "17 times, unprovoked, striking both victims" as they passed him, the arrest documents said.

According to the arrest documents, one victim was shot in the left shoulder while the other's left forearm was grazed by a bullet.  While in custody, Brafman said that as he was driving his truck, he saw what he described as two Palestinians and shot and killed both.

The two victims, a father and son who were visiting Miami from the Israeli occupied territories, took to social media to describe their accounts of the event.

In their X account, they also thanked “God” for saving their lives, chanted “Long live Israel” and called for the death of all “Arabs.”

The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Florida) called for federal hate crime charges for Brafman.  “We urge state and federal law enforcement authorities to bring hate crime charges in this case based on the alleged perpetrator’s statements to police that reportedly indicate an anti-Palestinian motive,” it said.

In a statement, CAIR-Florida Communications Director Wilfredo Amr Ruiz noted that from January to June 2024, CAIR, the US’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, had documented 4,951 incoming bias complaints nationwide, a 69 percent increase over the same period in 2023.

Back in June 2024, CAIR said the surge in anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate that erupted in October 2023 following Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip continued in the first half of 2024.