Israeli police say they have broken up a cell of young neo-Nazis who are implicated in a series of attacks on foreign workers, religious Jews, drug addicts and gays.
Eight suspects, all immigrants from the former Soviet Union, have been arrested recently in connection with at least 15 attacks, a police spokesman said Sunday.
A ninth suspect has fled the country.
All suspects are in either their late teens or early 20s. They all have Israeli citizenship, said Mickey Rosenfeld.
"The level of violence was outrageous," investigator Maj. Revital Almog told Israel's Army Radio.
A court ruled Sunday that the suspects will be kept in custody. While in court, the suspects covered their faces, revealing the tattoos on their arms.
The gang recorded its activities, using both video and still images.
Israeli TV stations showed footage of people getting stomped as they lay helplessly on the floor. One man got hit from behind with an empty bottle.
Such footage helped police identify victims, and other victims stepped forward to make complaints.
Rosenfeld said police retrieved weapons such as knives, spiked balls and explosives.
One photo showed a suspect holding an M16 assault rifle in one hand and a sign reading "Heil Hitler" in the other, he said.
The police first discovered the gang more than a year ago during the course of investigating the desecration of two synagogues in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva, he said.
Police have determined the gang had contacts with neo-Nazi groups abroad, Rosenfeld said.
The Anti-Defamation League, a U.S. group that fights anti-Semitism, urged Israelis to not turn against the entire Russian immigrant community over the actions of a few.
"The suspicion that immigrants to Israel could have been acting in praise of Nazis and Hitler is an anathema to the Jewish state and is to be repelled," its statement read.
"The tragic irony in this is that they would have been chosen for annihilation by the Nazis they strive to emulate."
An official with a group that works to encourage immigration to Israel also said the gang didn't represent Russian immigrants.
Amos Herman of the Jewish Agency said the gang was made of frustrated and disgruntled youth.
"We thought that it would never happen here, but it has and we have to deal with it," he said.
With files from The Associated Press
