2 Israelis Attacked in Manhattan (two Yeshiva students)

A Molotov cocktail was thrown at 2 Chabad Yeshiva students from Israel while visiting New York City on Friday afternoon, COLlive.com was told.

The bochurim were part of a group that took the Subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan to perform the weekly Mivtzoim rounds, helping Jewish business owners and clients to do a Mitzvah.

Yisroel and Yosef, both 19-year-olds who asked that their surname not be mentioned, were walking on W 37th Street near Ninth Avenue when one of them felt "an agitation."

"A firebomb was thrown at them," said a brother of one of the students. "It exploded and there was fire. They were shocked. An Israeli woman was walking by and ran over to check if they were okay."

"Thank G-d, it missed them and landed on the pavement," he added. "It was a male that throw it at them but they only got to see his back because he ran away. They didn't hear him shout or say anything."

Color me skeptical...but here is the new twist:

TImesofIsrael: Muslim vendor was target of NYC attack, not yeshiva students
Israeli youths were at the wrong place at the wrong time during Friday attack, police says
By JTA October 12, 2015, 11:34 pm
A firebomb believed to have been thrown at two Israeli yeshiva students in New York City was actually aimed at a Muslim food truck vendor, police said.
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The students, both 19, were walking in Midtown Manhattan on Friday when a still-unidentified assailant threw a bottle filled with combustible liquid that landed in front of them.
New York Police Department spokesman Lee Jones told the Gothamist blog on Monday that the Israeli students were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that the real target was the vendor, Saleh Hegazy, who had argued with someone who came back to attack him.
“It looks like an individual got into some sort of dispute with a manager at a food cart storage facility, came back and threw a bottle containing a combustible substance,” Jones said.
Jones also disputed the term “firebomb,” saying instead that an individual threw a bottle containing an unidentified substance.
The students, Yosef Rachimi and Yisrael Gadasi, are studying at a Brooklyn yeshiva for one year. They reportedly often visit Jewish-owned businesses to encourage people to perform mitzvahs, or good deeds.

There is an update to the link you provided at the same source:

Attacker Said "I Want To Kill You"

The person who threw a firebomb at 2 Israeli Yeshiva students on Friday in Manhattan reportedly shouted "I want to kill you!"
By COLlive reporter
Detectives from the New York Police Department were in Crown Heights on Sunday to gather details about the firebomb that was thrown on Friday at 2 Israeli Yeshiva students.
As first reported on COLlive.com, a molotov cocktail exploded inches away from Yosef Rachimi and Yisroel Gedassi, both 20, when they paused to make a phone call in front of 356 West 37th Street near 9th Avenue in New York City.
According to a witness, a man screamed “I want to kill you!” before he tossed the Molotov cocktail inside a Snapple bottle at the two as they stood on a Midtown sidewalk Friday afternoon, the Daily News Reported.
Rachimi and Gedassi recalled details of the incident in a meeting with the detectives at the conference room of the Jewish Children's Museum that lasted from 11:00 AM to 3:30 PM.
The two will be joining the NYPD investigative team at the scene of the attack in midtown Manhattan later today. The two regularly visit Ninth Avenue on Fridays to encourage Jewish business owners and clients to do a Mitzvah.
The attacker’s timing and preparedness has Jewish advocates worried. "A firebomb is not the kind of thing you have sitting in your car or in your bag unless you have someone to throw it at," says Barry Sugar, director of the Jewish Leadership Council. "It is conceivable that the attacker sees these boys every Friday and prepared this bomb to ambush them."
Police have yet to determine the nature of the attack and are said to be investigating both the hate crime or criminal motives.
Additional details on the attack, that has yet to be reported in major news outlets, are emerging in conversations COLlive.com held with people involved in the matter.
According to the students, a couple walking along 37th Street witnessed the attack and stopped to help. They ascertained that the flaming contraption was a homemade cocktail bomb made of a glass Snapple bottle filled with a flammable liquid and a wick.
"That was definitely thrown directly at you," the woman told the boys, while her companion ran across the street to where pallets of bottled water were being unloaded to get some water to put out the fire.
By the time he returned, two Arabic-speaking men had come out of the shop directly in front of the attack and extinguished the fire with a bucket of water. They removed the burnt bicycle that was chained to the lamppost and swept up the debris, leaving almost no obvious evidence of the attack.
Despite the apparent premeditation and the quick clean up by the neighboring shopkeepers, an NYPD officer who responded to the scene did not consider the incident noteworthy.
"He basically said, 'no injuries, nothing happened, let's move on,'" Yosef Rachimi, who speaks Hebrew, said through an interpreter.
Activist Barry Sugar believes the attack is a warning that must be heeded before it is repeated, possibly with more damaging effects. "It's a miracle that a bicycle blocked the bomb from hurting these boys. We can't count on that miracle next Friday."
After the incident, Yosef and Yisroel continued on their "route", shaken but undeterred, encouraging their regular Jewish "customers" to do yet another Mitzvah.

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