A 25-year-old Israeli settler, Amiram Ben-Ouliel, was sentenced Monday, September 14, to life imprisonment for the July 2015 murder of an 18-month-old Palestinian baby, Ali Dawabcheh, and his parents, Riham and Saad, in the village of Douma, in the northern occupied West Bank.
The Lod court (in the center of the country) had found Amiram Ben-Ouliel guilty of these murders last May. On Monday, he sentenced the young Jewish settler to a total of “Three sentences” of life imprisonment, one per murder.
In July 2015, the 18-month-old was burned alive in his sleep. His father Saad and his mother Riham, surprised like him in their sleep, succumbed to their burns in the following weeks. Only her brother, Ahmed, then 4 years old, survived.
Appeal to the Supreme Court
This drama had aroused great emotion in the Palestinian territories, in Israel and abroad. In May 2019, another Israeli arrested in this case pleaded guilty to participating in the preparation of a “Racist crime”. Last October, justice condemned him for “Membership of a terrorist organization”, in reference to a group of radical settlers who question the authority of the state.
Following the attack, Israel had been criticized abroad and by human rights organizations for its lax attitude towards radical groups. The Palestinians accused the Jewish state of “Support” to Jewish extremism. Unanimous Israeli leaders, however, denounced the “Jewish terrorism”.
In his confession, Amiram Ben-Ouliel, who was living at the time of the crime in a settlement in the occupied West Bank, claimed to have wanted to avenge the death of Malachi Rosenfeld, a settler gunned down by Palestinians, in the Douma village area. . He will not be able to apply for a reduction of his sentence before having served at least fifteen years in prison. He was also sentenced to twenty years in prison for attempted murder of the 4-year-old child who survived the fire and the neighbor of the family’s house.
His lawyer announced that his client would appeal to the Supreme Court. He also claimed that his client’s confession had been extracted from him under torture. In a statement, his wife, Oriane Ben-Ouliel, denounced “Injustice” made to her husband. “The judges did not seek to do justice or discover the truth but wanted to condemn my husband at all costs, despite the evidence of his innocence that we presented in court, she estimated. We will appeal and we do not give up hope of proving his innocence. “
