Four ships that were confiscated a month and a half ago by the Navy on their way to the Gaza Strip will be sold, and the money to be paid in their sale will be divided between two families of terror victims, the Gavish and Weinstein families, the Jerusalem District Court ruled following a petition filed by the families against Hamas.
According to a report in Yediot Aharonot, the court discussed the petition and heard the opinion of senior naval and intelligence officers, who unequivocally claimed that when any ships reach the Gaza Strip, they immediately pass on to Hamas. At the end of the hearing, the court decided that two of the ships, “Freedom” and “Karstein," would be confiscated if they were caught by the navy. At the end of July, the navy took control of the flotilla and the ships were transferred to Ashdod port. In recent days, the court ruled that the ships would be auctioned and that the money received from them would be distributed between the two families.
The Gavish family lost David and Rachel Gavish, residents of Elon Moreh, their son Avraham and Yitzchak Kanar, the father of Rachel Gavish. The attack occurred when a terrorist broke into the home of the Gavish family on the eve of the first day of Passover in 2002 and opened fire at the occupants.
The Weinstein family lost its son, Adam, in a terrorist attack on the Jerusalem pedestrian walkway in 2001. In both cases, the court determined the direct connection between the perpetrators of the attacks and the Hamas organization.
The amount to be collected from the sale of the ships is not expected to amount to more than a few thousand shekels to be distributed among the families, but the families see the decision as an important one in principle. "This is far from the tens of millions that the court has ruled for us," one family member told Yediot Aharonot, "but from our point of view this is only the beginning of the road. From now on, the world will know that there is a price for the intolerable crimes of Hamas.”