On Tuesday, the Jerusalem district court sentenced two terrorists, who executed a vehicle and stabbing attack which wounded two Jews approximately three years ago, to 11 and 16 years in prison, respectively.
Attorney Haim Bleicher of the Honenu organization who has been assisting the victims of the attack, says that the sentences are light and harm the deterrence against terrorists and that he calls on the prosecutor to appeal and insist on more severe punishment.
While the sentence was being announced, the terrorists' families began to riot in the courtroom and even tried to attack one of the victims.
"We were shocked when we heard the sentence. These are terrorists who carried out a combined terror attack. The terrorists shouldn't get points because of neglect during the investigation. Why was such a light sentence given and not one of 25 years in prison as dictated by the law for this type of terror? We demand that the prosecutor appeal the sentence. We think that the sentence harms the deterrence of terrorists and it will help terrorists escape justice in the future," says attorney Bleicher.
Regarding the terrorists' families' behavior in the courthouse, the attorney adds: "After the sentence was announced the family of the terrorist went wild in the courthouse and verbally attacked the judges. After that, one of the terrorists' family members, who works for the "Kavim" bus company, began to shout obscenities at the victims. We see from this that it's not enough to just punish the terrorists for their actions, it has come time to deter their families by expelling them from the country."
In 2019, two terrorists ran over two pedestrians with their car near the Jaffa Gate outside of Jerusalem's old city. According to the indictment, the two victims, yeshiva students, stood on the sidewalk waiting for the light to change, when a car with the two Arab terrorists suddenly jumped the curb and hit them. According to one of the victims, the driver attempted to run them over a second time. When he didn't manage the two terrorists exited their car, hit the victims, kicked them, and escaped the scene. After a short time, the two terrorists were caught.
Despite the testimonies of both the victims and witnesses, the police began investigating the event as a traffic accident and not as a terror attack, and the attackers were sent home. Honenu led a long fight to prove that the incident was a terror attack. Only after several months, due to progress in the case the Israel Security Agency (ISA) joined the investigation, the incident was recognized as a terror attack and the terrorists were detained until the end of the legal process and were prosecuted for terrorist actions of attempted murder.