Yair Lapid
Yair LapidFlash 90

Israel should demolish the homes of Jewish terrorists – starting with those of the families whose children burned Arab youth Mohammed Abu Khder to death in 2014, said Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid.

“Jews do not murder innocent children,” Lapid said at a meeting of his Yesh Atid party Monday. “It isn't complicated. The murderers are known, and they need to be imprisoned until the day of their death, and their homes demolished, if necessary.”

Earlier Monday, the Jerusalem District Court convicted two minors in the July 2, 2014 murder of Abu Khder. The two have been turned over to juvenile authorities, who will make a recommendation on how to punish them. However, the final disposition of the case of an adult on trial for the crime, 29-year-old Yosef Haim Ben-David, was postponed further due to his history of mental illness. He was arrested two years before the murder on suspicion he tried to strangle his own infant daughter, and has been on psychiatric treatment ever since.

Shortly after being arrested the three admitted to the crime and reenacted how they bludgeoned and then burned the Arab youth to death in the Jerusalem Forest. They said the murder was an act of "revenge" for the murders of Israeli teens Naftali Frenkel (16), Gilad Sha'ar (16), and Eyal Yifrah (19), who were abducted by Hamas terrorists on June 12 and murdered shortly after.

Lapid said that postponing the sentencing of Ben-David was “a difficult decision. We will always ferociously defend the courts and their decisions, but it is very difficult to defend the ongoing delays in this case. Our moral identity is being tested with these incidents.”