An Israeli court on Monday handed down three life sentences to a Jewish extremist convicted in a 2015 arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents.
The Lod District Court found Amiram Ben-Uliel, a Jewish settler, guilty of murder in May for the killing of 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh by firebombing his home in the West Bank village of Duma.
The toddler’s mother, Riham, and father, Saad, later died of their wounds. Ali’s 4-year-old brother Ahmad survived the attack.
The court said Ben-Uliel’s “actions were meticulously planned, and stemmed from the radical ideology he held, and racism.” It said the punishment was “close to the maximum penalty prescribed by the law.”
The 2015 arson attack came amid a wave of vigilante attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank by suspected Jewish extremists. The deadly firebombing in Duma touched a particularly sensitive nerve, drawing condemnation from across Israel’s political spectrum.
Critics, however, noted that lesser non-deadly attacks, such as firebombings that damaged mosques and churches, had gone unpunished for years. And as the investigation into the Duma attack dragged on, Palestinians complained of a double-standard, where Palestinian suspects are quickly rounded up and prosecuted under a military legal system that gives them few rights while Jewish Israelis are protected by the country’s criminal laws.
“What will the court’s decision give me? What will it give to Ahmad?" the child's grandfather, Hussein Dawabsheh, told reporters outside the courtroom on Monday. "It won’t return anything to him.”
The convicted man’s wife, Orian Ben-Uliel, told reporters after the sentencing that “the judges didn’t seek justice or truth. They decided to incriminate my husband at any price.” She said the family would appeal to Israel's Supreme Court.
The Shin Bet internal security service had said Ben-Uliel confessed to planning and carrying out the attack, and that two others were accessories. It said he claimed the arson was in retaliation for the killing of an Israeli by Palestinians a month earlier.
Ben-Uliel belonged to a movement known as the “Hilltop Youth,” a leaderless group of young people who set up unauthorized settlement outposts, usually clusters of trailers, on West Bank hilltops — land the Palestinians claim for their hoped-for state.
The Hilltop Youth have been known to attack Palestinians and even to clash with Israeli soldiers in response to perceived moves by the government to limit settlement activity.
Later in 2015, Israel faced a wave of stabbing, shooting and car-ramming attacks by Palestinians. Most were carried out by lone attackers with no connection to militant groups.
Israeli police and Palestinian youths clashed again at a major Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews and Muslims on Friday despite a temporary halt to Jewish visits to the site, which are seen as a provocation by the Palestinians.
Palestinians and Israeli police have regularly clashed at the site for the last week at a time of heightened tensions in the region following a string of deadly attacks inside Israel and arrest raids in the occupied West Bank. Three rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel.
Palestinian youths hurled stones toward police at a gate leading into the compound, according to two Palestinian witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns. The police, in full riot gear, then entered the compound, firing rubber bullets and stun grenades.
Israeli police clash with Palestinian protesters at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, Friday, April 22, 2022. (AP PhotoMahmoud Illean)
The Palestinian Red Crescent medical service said nine Palestinians were wounded, two of them seriously.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City is the third holiest site in Islam. The sprawling esplanade on which it is built is the holiest site for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the location of two Jewish temples in antiquity. It lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and clashes there have often ignited violence elsewhere.
Tens of thousands of Muslim worshippers are expected at the site later in the day for the main weekly prayers.
Israeli police move behind riot shields during clashes with Palestinian protesters at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City, Friday, April 22, 2022. (AP PhotoMahmoud Illean)
Palestinians and neighboring Jordan, the custodian of the site, accuse Israel of violating longstanding arrangements by allowing increasingly large numbers of Jews to visit the site under police escort.
A longstanding prohibition on Jews praying at the site has eroded in recent years, fueling fears among Palestinians that Israel plans to take over the site or partition it.
Israel says it remains committed to the status quo and blames the violence on incitement by the Islamic militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza. It says its security forces are acting to thwart rock-throwers in order to ensure freedom of worship for Jews and Muslims.
Visits by Jewish groups were halted beginning Friday for the last 10 days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as they have been in the past.
This year, the fasting month coincided with the Jewish Passover and major Christian holidays, with tens of thousands of people from all three faiths flocking to the Old City after the lifting of most coronavirus restrictions.
