The Jerusalem District Prosecutor's Office submitted an indictment to the District Court on Tuesday against Ayman Hamad. The 49-year-old building contractor is being charged with negligent homicide for the January 2024 wall collapse that killed 25-year-old yeshiva student Itzik Steinberger in Jerusalem's Meah Shearim neighborhood.
According to the indictment, Hamad, who was conducting renovation work on a building, violated construction regulations by building formworks on only one side of the wall, while the other side rested on the wall of the old building.
In addition, he poured all of the concrete at once rather than gradually, and did not assess the load of the concrete or the structure’s strength beforehand.
As a result, the old wall did withstand the load and collapsed on Steinberger as he took an afternoon nap in his room, covering him in rubble and concrete. He was evacuated to a hospital and died from head trauma.
At the end of May, the Prosecutor's Office closed the case against the owner of the property on the grounds of absence of guilt. The indictment filed today therefore focuses solely on the contractor, who is directly responsible for the disaster.