AFAQ NEWS
An Israeli court has convicted a Jewish settler of murdering three members of a Palestinian family in a 2015 arson attack in the occupied West Bank.
Judges found Amiram Ben Uliel threw a firebomb into a home in the village of Duma, killing Saad and Riham Dawabsha and their 18-month-old son Ali.
Ali’s brother Ahmed, who was then four, suffered severe injuries but survived.
Ben Uliel was also found guilty of attempted murder, but was acquitted of belonging to a terrorist organisation.
His lawyers said he planned to appeal against the convictions at the Supreme Court, arguing that Israeli investigators had forced him to make a false confessions.
The night-time attack on the Dawabsha family’s home in July 2015 sparked international condemnation and inflamed Israeli-Palestinian tensions, contributing to a rise in violence.
Saad, Riham and their children were asleep when masked assailants threw a firebomb through their bedroom window and daubed walls with slogans in Hebrew, including the word “revenge”.
Ali died during the ensuing blaze, while his parents succumbed to their wounds later in hospital. Ahmed spent months in hospital undergoing treatment for burns.
In 2016, Israeli prosecutors charged Ben Uliel with murder and a second suspect, a minor who has not been named, with being an accessory to murder.
According to the indictment, the attack was carried out in retaliation for the killing of a settler in a drive-by shooting one month before.
Last year, a court approved a plea deal in which the minor admitted to conspiring to set fire to the Dawabsha’s home.
Ben Uliel, who is 25 and from the settlement of Shilo, sat with his head down as he was found guilty of three counts of murder by the Lod District Court on Monday.
Israeli media reported that he confessed to the crime three times.
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