One of Israel's most shocking and brutal murder cases came to a close on Monday, when the Samaria District Military Court sentenced Palestinian terrorist Amjad Awad to five consecutive life sentences for the murder of five members of the Fogel family last March.
Awad, 19, was the second of the two defendants in the case to be sentenced. He and his cousin Hakim Awad had infiltrated the West Bank settlement of Itamar at night and stabbed the two parents and three of their children to death in their home. One of the children was a 3-month-old infant.
In addition to the five life sentences, Awad received seven years jail for other charges. In total, he faces 132 years in prison. Hakim Awad was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences last September.
Awad did not react when the sentence was read. He looked at the interpreter assigned to him with contempt but did not ask to speak.
The courtroom was uncharacteristically empty: The family of the victims was not present, nor were the extreme rightists who had repeatedly disrupted the court during the course of the trial.
The judges presiding over the case recounted their deliberations on whether to hand down life sentences, as the prosecution requested, or to issue a death sentence. Israel does not normally enact capital punishment -- it has been used only once before, on senior Nazi Adolf Eichmann -- but Israeli courts have the option of seeking death sentences in cases of particularly heinous terrorist or other acts.
"The acts that the defendant has confessed to -- there is nothing more monstrous," said Judge Lt. Col. Yair Tirosh. "The defendant stood before us without a glimmer of remorse or a hint of shame in his eyes."
"There is not a single cultured individual who can grasp the hatred, brutality and primitive nature of these monsters," he added.
Haim Fogel, whose son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren were murdered in the attack, told Israel Hayom on Monday that, "It is a shame that they didn't resist arrest and consequently be killed on the spot. No one in the world would have been sorry to see them go.
They succeeded in murdering a good family, but we will continue to make and build," Fogel added.
The Chief Rabbi of Itamar, Rabbi Natan Hai, also responded to the sentence, saying, "The government must take action against the families of murderers and find any possible method to deter them from carrying out their plots."
"We will build a synagogue to commemorate Itamar's saints, and a new neighborhood and a school, and we will live life to illuminate the killers' darkness," the rabbi declared.
Meanwhile a potentially deadly terror attack was foiled Monday when, moments before dozens of reporters and security personnel entered the courtroom for the sentencing, two Palestinians carrying 10 pipe bombs were apprehended at the entrance to the court compound.
The suspects were taken into custody by the Shin Bet security service. An investigation was launched to determine whether the two had planned to carry out a terror attack inside the courtroom.