Palestinian sentenced to four life sentences for deadly 2018 terror attacks

A Palestinian man was sentenced Wednesday by a military court to four life sentences over a pair of December 2018 terror attacks in which two soldiers and an unborn baby were killed.

The Ofer Military Court also ordered Asem Barghouti to pay millions of shekels in compensation to the injured and the families of those killed.

Barghouti was convicted in November by the court on three counts of murder for his role in the shootings. He was also convicted of 12 counts of attempted murder, obstruction of justice and belonging to a banned organization.

Following his arrest last January, Barghouti was accused of carrying out a shooting attack on a bus stop near the Givat Assaf outpost and of helping his brother Salih in a shooting at a bus stop outside the Ofra settlement days earlier.

Two soldiers, Sgt. Yosef Cohen and Staff Sgt. Yovel Mor Yosef, were killed in the Givat Assaf attack. Another soldier was seriously injured as was a woman.

The subsequent shooting at Ofra left seven people injured, among them a woman who was seven months pregnant. Doctors delivered her baby in an emergency operation, but he died days later despite efforts to save him.

Barghouti was arrested following a nearly month-long manhunt, while his brother Salih was killed by Israeli troops during an attempted arrest in December 2018.

The IDF last year razed both brothers’ homes in the West Bank village of Kobar, near Ramallah.

Source: TOI