BERLIN: A young Syrian migrant admitted today to lashing out with his belt at an Israeli man wearing a Jewish kippa skullcap in an assault that stoked fears of resurgent anti-Semitism.

A video of the attack, filmed by the victim on his smartphone, sparked widespread public revulsion as it spread on social media, and later triggered large street rallies to show solidarity with Jews. The defendant, a 19-year-old Palestinian from Syria, is charged with dangerous assault and hate speech in the trial that was to hear eight witnesses and could reach a verdict the same day.

The footage of the April 17 assault shows the attacker, one of a group of three, shouting “Yahudi“, Jew in Arabic, before lashing out at the two men, leaving one injured. “I’m sorry, it was a mistake”, the defendant told a Berlin court, while claiming the victim had insulted him first, reported news agency DPA.

“I didn’t want to hit him, I only wanted to scare him,” he said in his testimony, which switched from halting German to Arabic. “I had smoked some dope, my head was tired.” Grievous bodily harm usually carries jail terms of three months to five years in Germany, but less under the juvenile law which can be applied for defendants up to 20 years of age.