Six Yitzhar settlers jailed for attacks on security forces

Lod District Court on Thursday sentenced six residents of the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar to eight months in prison and an eight-month suspended sentence for attacking Israeli security forces.

Reuven Cohen, Yehodaya Sochi and four minors from the settlement south of Nablus, were sentenced as part of a plea bargain on charges of rock-throwing, vandalism and disrupting police work in summer 2013, the Jerusalem Post said.

The attacks, which the court labeled as “ideological,” also included aiming burning tires at security forces on patrol.

The court called the prison term a “necessary deterrent” against such incidents in the future.

“This was no youthful frolic,” the court determined, according to the Israel National News website.

“Behind the act lies an ideology that the accused believed in… according to which the state is an enemy and it is legitimate to use unacceptable methods against it, including violent acts and causing damage,” the court said.

Yitzhar settlers have clashed with security forces on more than one occasion, including a April 2014 incident in which they demolished an IDF post near the settlement. The authorities have also pulled down illegally built structures at the settlement.