An Israeli court has convicted a Jewish settler guilty of racially motivated murder in a 2015 arson attack that killed a Palestinian couple and their baby in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli prosecutors said Amiram Ben-Uliel chose the Dawabsheh family home and another dwelling in Duma village, near Nablus, on the assumption they were inhabited and, before firebombing them, spray-painted “Revenge” and “Long Live King Messiah” on their walls.
According to the indictment bill, Uliel threw two molotov cocktails at the house of Dawabsheh's family.
The purpose was to murder the family, as a vengeance attack to an earlier #Palestinian terror attack where a #Jewish man was murdered. pic.twitter.com/3ddLbbzkzJ
— Amihai (@Amihai03193415) May 18, 2020
The arson attack killed 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh. His mother, Riham, and father, Saad, later died of their wounds. Ali’s four-year-old brother Ahmad survived with burns on his body.
Ben-Uliel’s triple conviction on Monday by the Lod District Court carries a potential life sentence.
The 25-year-old was also found guilty of two counts of attempted murder and two of arson but was acquitted of a charge of belonging to a “terrorist” organization.
#Dawabsheh Family Denounces #Israeli Plea Deal in 2015 Arson Attack https://t.co/la840nbHDH @PalestineChron pic.twitter.com/kaU4W6UIGo
— @palestinechron (@PalestineChron) May 16, 2019
In response to the verdict, Hussein Dawabsheh, Ahmed’s grandfather, said he “feels that the trial was for others, not for me. It won’t bring back my daughter; her husband and my grandson won’t return, but I don’t want another child to be in Ahmed’s place. We experienced a great trauma, and I won’t forget it in 100 years. I don’t want this to happen to another family.”
In a statement, the Shin Bet security service called the court’s decision “an important milestone in the battle against Jewish terror”. Ben-Uliel’s crimes, it said, are a “severe crossing of a red line.”
(Palestine Chronicle, AJE, Social Media)
I am pleased to read about this verdict, as must every decent person be. It was a shocking crime carried out with no regard to the suffering and horrific deaths of the Dawabsheh family. I hope that this verdict, and the appropriate sentence that must follow, will deter others from committing such atrocities.