A life sentence was meted today to Faiz Hamed, one of the squad members who carried out the 2015 Islamic attack near Shvut Rachel in which Malachi Rosenfeld was murdered. He was also required to pay compensation to the murdered's family.
Hamed was convicted of a number of offenses including intentionally causing death, equivalent to the murder charge in Israeli law, and attempts to commit this offense.
The verdict indicates that Hamed was a member of and operated in a military squad that planned to carry out attacks against Israelis. As part of squad operations, its members carried out a number of shooting attacks.
He admitted that on June 29, 2015, two squad members were traveling in a vehicle purchased in advance for the purpose of an attack and fired at a vehicle of Malachi Rosenfeld, who was critically wounded and died in hospital. Three others were wounded.
In addition, on another occasion, squad members fired at an Israeli car and ambulance.
In September 2017, a judge in Judea's military court meted a life sentence to the Muslim who murdered Malachi Rosenfeld and fined him NIS 325,000 in damages.
The judge, Lieutenant Colonel Zvi Heilbrun, wrote that the terrorist was convicted of the most serious offense on the books, as he put it. "He provided the squad with the firearm, suggested the place to carry out the attack, and actively made sure the actual attacker knew the area."
The judge said Amjad Hamed also acted to cover up the murder by cleaning and dismantling the vehicle used to carry out the attack. "In his actions, the accused severely damaged the value of the sanctity of life. Injury that there is no greater than it and from which there is no return.
"The defendant and his partners in the offenses also violated values concerning the integrity of a person's body, personal safety, safety of the public and the whole area," the judge ruled. "Every person is a world. In the Mishnah in Tractate Sanhedrin it says, 'One who causes to go lost one soul from the world - it is as if he has caused to go lost an entire world."
The judge noted that "the condemned's actions can only be punishable by life imprisonment and his placement behind bars for the rest of his life. This punishment is the customary and proper punishment for the murder offense in Israel and the region. This penalty is also the punishment the defendant deserves and which expresses his active involvement and contribution to the realization of the attack and the purpose of the squad."
Another life sentence and another 30 years were meted to Abdullah Asahaq for intentionally causing the death of Malachi Rosenfeld.
Asahaq was the driver of the vehicle in which the squad committed the attack. In addition to the prison sentence, Asahaq was charged NIS 250,000 in compensation to Rosenfeld's family and NIS 25,000 to each of the wounded in the attack.