The Inyan Merkazi news outlet and journalist Rami Yitzhar have been ordered to pay 250,000 shekels over an article accusing kidnapped IDF soldiers of engaging in criminal activity. The article, published in 2000, claimed there was reason to suspect that Benny Avraham and two fellow soldiers were missing in Lebanon due to involvement in the drug industry.
Avraham’s bereaved parents argued that the report set off a “wave” of similar reports online. The false news reports not only were humiliating to the soldiers and their families, but also reduced the importance in the public eye of rescuing the missing soldiers, they said.
Yitzhar claimed that his site had never published such an article, but the court found otherwise based on witness testimony and an interview Yitzhar had given in which the interviewer quoted from the article.