The State Attorney’s Office has filed an appeal to the Supreme Court against the lenient sentences handed down to eight terrorists from Lod and Judea and Samaria who took part in the lynching and murder of Yigal Yehoshua, who was beaten to death during the “Guardian of the Walls” riots in 2021.
About two months ago, the Lod District Court sentenced seven of the terrorists to 13 years in prison and one terrorist to three years for their roles in the brutal attack.
Yehoshua was murdered when terrorists stoned his car as he was driving home in Lod. He sustained a severe head injury and died several days later from his wounds. Seven of the attackers were convicted of committing an act of terror involving aggravated intentional injury, while one was convicted of a different terrorism-related offense.
Attorney Haim Bleicher, head of the Victims of Terror Department at the Honenu legal organization, which represents Yigal’s brother Ephraim Yehoshua, welcomed the state’s appeal and called for harsher punishment: “We welcome the filing of the appeal against the lenient sentences and expect a ruling that will impose heavier punishment on these terrorists. This was a brutal terrorist attack in which numerous rioters stoned Jewish vehicles after making a selection, intending to cause disaster. The late Yigal Yehoshua was critically injured and died several days later from his wounds.”
Bleicher emphasized that the district court’s ruling, which imposed 12.5 to 14 years of imprisonment, represents only about half of the maximum sentence allowed by law for the main offenses: “For such exceptionally severe and unprecedented cases, punishment must be at the highest level permitted by law, even if no similar precedent exists. The terrorist act that led to the murder of Yigal Yehoshua z”l was part of Hamas’s plot during Guardian of the Walls and aimed at harming our very existence. It is vital to maintain deterrence-showing weakness in the face of terrorism is dangerous. We expect the Supreme Court to address the appeal and significantly increase the sentences of these rioters.”