A security camera caught on Friday a man spitting twice on the monument marking the site of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, beneath Tel Aviv's City Hall building.

The man, who was identified as a former municipal employee, also spray-painted "Yitzhak Rabin = Hitler" on a nearby wall. The municipality has filed a police complaint against him.

At around 6 am the City Hall dispatch received a call saying hate slogans were spray-painted near the Rabin memorial. Tel Aviv police launched an investigation and the security camera footage was analyzed.

City employees suspected a former colleague, who later admitted to the act, which he said was committed to avenge the June 1948 attack on the ship Altalena. He said his brother was aboard the ship when it was attacked by IDF forces commanded by Rabin.

During the Altalena affair, the newly-formed IDF shelled a ship carrying weapons and fighters for the Irgun, a paramilitary Jewish group. Sixteen Irgun members and three IDF soldiers were killed in the confrontation.