Itamar Ben-Gal
Itamar Ben-GalYitzhak Melamed

The parents of Rabbi Itamar Ben-Gal, who was murdered in a stabbing attack in February of 2018, wrote a letter to be read on Sunday during a discussion of the punishment for the terrorist which will be held in the Lod District Court.

The bereaved parents, Daniel and Shoshana Ben Gal, wrote to the judges: "When you come to sentence the despicable killer you are facing, we wanted to emphasize that this killer symbolizes all the evil that exists in the world.”

"This evil brutally struck our son Itamar, who was full of life and who gave his life to educate the next generation of the State of Israel."

In the letter, which was published in the Israel Hayom newspaper, Itamar's parents add that "this despicable murderer interrupted his life, leaving a family with a wife and four children."

The parents expect the terrorist to receive the harshest punishment permitted by the law, so that he is never released. "We know that you cannot impose the death penalty, but we ask that you sentence him to a prison sentence that will cause him to rot in prison until his last day, that he will no longer be able to see the light of day. We ask that you determine that, under no circumstances, will he be included in any future terrorist release deal."

Rabbi Itamar Ben Gal, a resident of Har Bracha and educator at the Yeshivat Bnei Akiva Givat Shmuel, was murdered in a stabbing attack at the entrance to the city of Ariel. The 19-year-old terrorist fled the scene and was captured more than a month later, in Shechem (Nablus), after a long manhunt by security forces.