Israeli student B. Yogev was beaten up on the Paris Metro by an ‘anti-Zionist, antisemitic’ assailant. Photo: Meyer Habib Twitter feed.

An Israeli student is recovering in a French hospital after he was brutally beaten up on the Paris subway by a man who overheard him speaking in Hebrew on his cellphone.

The incident took place just before 7 p.m. on Monday night, the French Jewish security organization BNVCA reported. As the student boarded a train at the Château d’Eau station on the Paris Metro together with a friend, he received a phone call from his father, which he answered in Hebrew. The two men — both said to be 6 feet in height and of African origin — immediately began shouting aggressively at the student, who has been named as B. Yogev, in his early 30s. Other passengers on the train also pointed toward Yogev and began threatening him, the BNVCA said.

One of the men then landed several punches to Yogev’s head, face and body, knocking him to the floor of the subway carriage and leaving him with concussion and a broken nose. Yogev was taken to Lariboisière Hospital in Paris, accompanied by the friend with whom he was traveling, who was not reported to have been attacked. The assailant and his companion are yet to be apprehended.

Monday’s attack on the Metro came less than a week after French lawmakers voted in favor of a furiously-debated parliamentary resolution that recognized anti-Zionism as a manifestation of antisemitism.

The attack on Yogev for speaking Hebrew in public, the BNVCA commented, “confirms that anti-Zionism is antisemitic in nature.” It urged both the police and the security department of the RATP  — the public transport authority in Paris — to “identify and apprehend the antisemitic, anti-Zionist assailant.”

French Jewish legislator Meyer Habib said on Twitter that he had made contact with Yogev, describing him as an Israeli student “molested on the subway for speaking Hebrew.” Habib called on France’s interior minister, Christophe Castaner, to investigate the attack.

Parce qu'il parlait hébreu, Yogev B, étudiant israélien a été molesté dans le métro bondé par 2 individus #Paris. Nez cassé, points de suture, hématomes, perte de connaissance ! J'ai avisé @CCastaner directement. Toute la vérité ! La haine #Israel #antisemitisme frappe et tue ! pic.twitter.com/ocnNcwk5zO

— Meyer Habib (@Meyer_Habib) December 10, 2019