A rabbi whom pro-Hamas activists assaulted last year urged the Department of Justice on Thursday to investigate Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), alleging that officers have been ordered "not to enforce D.C. law against anti-Israel protesters."

Anti-Israel activists assaulted Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld—leader of Washington’s Yeshivas Elimelech Jewish studies center—while he prayed outside the Israeli embassy. The protesters, who had demonstrated near the embassy since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, attempted to disrupt Herzfeld’s prayer by blasting sirens in his ear, ultimately damaging his hearing.

Herzfeld approached the MPD officers after the assault, asking why they did not intervene. The officers "told Rabbi Herzfeld that they had been instructed not to enforce the noise ordinances against Palestinian protesters who protested outside the Israel Embassy," his letter to the Justice Department reads.

"Rabbi Herzfeld believes that the MPD has either been given such instructions or has itself instructed certain officers not to enforce D.C. law against anti-Israel protestors," he wrote through his legal representative, Rothwell Figg, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. "Rabbi Herzfeld has a specific basis to believe that for more than a year, MPD officers have been under instruction to avoid enforcing certain D.C. laws against anti-Israel protesters in the District."