The family of Elhai Taharlev, the soldier murdered on Thursday in a car-ramming attack near Ofra, held a meeting with Defense Minister Liberman on Friday.
At the meeting, the family asserted that the terrorist Hamad Maalak knew that he wouldn’t die, as a result of soldiers’ fear of punishment following the Azariya trial.
“The terrorist sat in the car with hands raised and mumbled that he was sorry,” one of the siblings said, according to Yisrael Hayom.
Elhai’s brother, Eitam, emphasized that “things like this cannot continue, that a man comes and kills soldiers, knowing that they can’t do anything. He comes out of the incident with his hands raised. He knows that he will continue to live in jail. I don’t know what it’s possible to do to him. [On the one hand,] we can’t be the Wild West, we can’t just kill everyone. It’s not possible, it’s forbidden to do something like that. [But] I don’t know what we can do.”
In response, Liberman said that “we need to prevent it first of all, and those who are caught - they cannot be released.”
Elhai’s father, Rabbi Ohad Taharlev called on Liberman to protect the IDF: “The IDF is the most important entity today in Israeli society.”