66-year-old man robbed in Tel Aviv recounts to Walla: 'He choked me with a stick and screamed - I will murder you'

Andy Spitzer, 66, arrived last night (Sunday) for his routine shift as a security guard in a building on Yehuda Halevi Street in Tel Aviv. He did not imagine that within a short time he would find himself attacked and choked, and his mobile phone robbed from him. Now, in his first interview with Walla, he recounts the moments of the violent robbery and the fear that remains with him even after the suspect was arrested.

'I heard noise outside and went out to see what it was,' says Spitzer. 'I saw a person holding a metal ashtray and shouting at passersby: "I will murder you if you don't give me a call." He chased after one of them and failed, then the second. Then he raised his head and came straight at me.'

According to him, within seconds the shouting in the street turned into a direct attack against him.

'He lunged at me with a stick, grabbed me by the head, and choked me. He took my phone and ran towards the direction opposite Discount Bank. It is scary, he surprised me completely. I started shouting at him: "Give me back the phone."'

Spitzer says that those passersby whom the suspect had threatened earlier had already called the police. 'Luckily for me, those he had screamed at earlier called the police. They arrived quickly, within five minutes,' he recounts.

According to him, this is the first time he has experienced such an event at his workplace. 'I have been a security guard in the building for several years and in my life such a thing has never happened to me,' he said.

For Spitzer, the arrest may have stopped the incident on the street, but not the fear that remained after it. On Wednesday he is supposed to return to the same building, to the same shift, and to the same street where he was attacked. But this time, he says, nothing feels routine anymore: 'I don't know how I will return there. I am afraid he will be released and come back to look for me.'