Eitan Ze'ev and Yossi Dagan
Eitan Ze'ev and Yossi DaganRoi Hadi

The Central District Attorney's Office filed an indictment Sunday morning in the Central District Court against Eitan Ze'ev (27), a resident of Dolev, for aggravated assault.

According to the indictment, about two months ago, on the afternoon of July 5, Ze'ev arrived with his six friends to work on an agricultural plot near Kfar Biddya, carrying a licensed handgun.

While the members of the group ate lunch, dozens of Palestinians Arabs arrived and blocked the access path to the plot with vehicles. Ze'ev approached the Arabs and asked them to clear the access path so that the members of the group could leave.

At this point, an altercation broke out between the farmers and the Muslims. The defendant tried to keep the attackers away with a gun in his hand. At one point, the defendant was standing in front of one of the Muslims, while a few meters behind him the complainant was standing. The defendant pushed him with his hand and aimed the gun near the attacker's head, firing one bullet near his ear. The bullet hit the complainant, who collapsed to the ground. The complainant was rushed to hospital with serious injuries.

Last week, Samaria Regional Council chairman Yossi Dagan, presented Ze'ev with a certificate of appreciation for preventing the lynching of himself and his friends, and criticized the decision of the State Attorney's Office to file an indictment against him.

"We cherish those dear people who defended the lives of other people and themselves in the face of barbaric murderous rioters who tried to lynch Jews in Samaria," Dagan said. "We pay tribute to the people who prevented an attack, people who prevented a brutal murder and a barbaric lynching here in Samaria."

Dagan criticized the police and the prosecutor's office: "We are facing a process in which the victims of terrorism become defendants. This is illogical, we are not dealing with a sniper school, we are not dealing with a school to fight terrorism, we are talking about civilians, farmers who were barbarically attacked following calls from the mosques to come and harm them."

He said, "Every citizen who uses his weapon to protect his life and the lives of others and to prevent them from being harmed by terrorists should receive the highest civilian respect, and certainly should not be under house arrest and not be afraid of being prosecuted. Any decent person should protest against this."