Eight years after Israeli soldier Eden Natan-Zada shot four Israeli Arabs to death aboard a bus, a Haifa court acquitted the seven residents of the Israeli Arab town of Shfaram of attempted murder charges for the subsequent lynching of Natan-Zada.
"A society must never accept blood revenge or lynching, even when the victim committed a terrible crime," the court wrote in the verdict, convicting four of the seven defendants of attempted manslaughter. Two additional defendants were convicted of aggravated assault, and the seventh defendant was acquitted entirely.
In 2005, Natan-Zada -- a 19-year-old Israel Defense Forces soldier who became religious and relocated to the settlement of Tapuach and later defected from the IDF -- boarded a bus headed to Shfaram and opened fire. In addition to killing four Israeli Arabs, Natan-Zada wounded an additional nine passengers. The other passengers then attacked him and ultimately killed him.
As the defendants awaited their verdict, dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse in Haifa. Most of the demonstrators were Arab activists and relatives of the defendants. A general strike was called in the town of Shfaram ahead of the verdict.
"I heard someone talking on the radio about a civil war in Syria and that [Syrian President Bashar] Assad was massacring his people," said one of the defendants before the verdict was read. "Let me remind you that this is a democracy. This is Israel. The people on that bus were defending themselves. None of us went to [Natan-Zada's] settlement; this was a Jewish terrorist who came into our village."
The defendants, accused of beating Natan-Zada as he was lying on the floor of the bus, were arrested ten months after the incident. They were kept in custody for several weeks and then released to house arrest. Three months later the house arrest was lifted and the trial has proceeded while the defendants were free.
The charges against the seven defendants were attempted murder, aggravated assault of a police officer, and interfering with police activity.
Awaiting the verdict, the family's attorney lashed out at the State Prosecution, saying that "there is no doubt that a murder was committed. It is a disgrace that the charges are what they are."
"The Zada family was broken, and mentally exhausted, and they expected the state authorities to dole out a harsher punishment to those who murdered an Israeli soldier in uniform," attorney Yaakov Menken told Channel 2 News on Monday. "The entire process was slow, weak, and bordering on clumsy. We hope that the state will convict and punish the people who are responsible for the death of the boy."
Menken stressed that the family was not interested in exacting revenge, but rather they want to see justice served. "The family sees the state as responsible for what happened to their son. They know that he was arrested alive and handcuffed. The police left him to die. The family expects justice for those who killed him and for the police."
טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו