Educators sentenced to 7 years over deaths of 10 students in flash flood disaster
Judge links 2018 Tzafit riverbed incident to Oct. 7 massacre, saying those responsible must shoulder the blame for such disasters; father of victim says prison terms too lenient
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
The Beersheba District Court on Tuesday sentenced two men to seven years in prison for their roles in the 2018 Tzafit riverbed flash flood disaster that caused the deaths of 10 teens.
Days ahead of the seventh anniversary of the disaster, Yuval Kahan, the former principal of the Bnei Zion premilitary academy, and Aviv Bardichev, a former teacher at the institution, were also each ordered to pay NIS 210,000 ($57,000) in compensation.
The two were convicted of negligent manslaughter last year. They were held responsible for the deaths of 10 academy and high school students who were in a group that was hit by a flash flood while hiking in the Tzafit riverbed in the Dead Sea region.
The pair was accused of disregarding multiple inclement weather warnings ahead of the trip, insisting on going ahead with the plan and scorning safety concerns.
The court found in convicting the two that they should have changed the route of their hike due to the poor weather.
The court noted Kahan’s negligence and said that “despite his senior managerial position and the unusual and extreme situation in which the group was traveling, he was not interested and did not know what exactly the group was doing, and when he did [finally] understand what it was doing — he did not stop it.” Kahan was not with the group at the time of the disaster.
The court said of Bardichev that he did not give adequate consideration to the warnings he had received, “and entered the stream with a group of young people who trusted him, despite those warnings and the prevailing weather” at the time of the disaster.
“The court emphasized the high level of harm to the sanctity of life and other values, including the harm to the trust between parents and educational staff,” in the wake of the disaster.
The judge linked the disaster to the climate after the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, emphasizing the necessity for people responsible for such catastrophes to accept their responsibility and shoulder the blame.
“Yuval did not admit to the failure and accept responsibility. On the contrary, he placed responsibility, even if only implicitly, on others,” the judge continued. “Aviv also did not take responsibility, but denied responsibility and pointed to others. I found that they should receive a similar punishment.”
Prosecutors had sought a 12-year prison sentence, but the court found that such a sentence could not be justified by previous rulings, while also rejecting requests by the defendants’ lawyers that the two serve their sentences in community service.
In November, parents of the victims expressed dismay over the Beersheba District Court ruling that cleared Kahan and Bardichev of the more serious offense of negligent homicide that they were originally charged with, instead convicting them of reckless manslaughter.
Itzhik Or, whose daughter Ella was killed in the disaster, said Tuesday that the prison term handed down was not long enough, noting that a childcare employee in Eilat recently received a 10-year sentence for abusing toddlers.
“For killing 10 teenagers? A reduced sentence. I want a single legal expert to convince me this is reasonable,” he told the Ynet news site.
Arik Shamir, whose daughter Shani was killed, told Kan radio it was “difficult to see them rejecting responsibility, or anything else that had to do with them, for a very long time.”
Nine girls and one boy were killed when the group was hit by flash floods: Shamir from the central city of Shoham; Or from Ma’ale Adumim; Maayan Barhum and Yael Sadan from Jerusalem; Tzur Alfi, the only young man who was killed, from the central town of Mazkeret Batya; Agam Levy from the central town of Herut; Romi Cohen of Maor, near Hadera; Gali Balali from the Tel Aviv suburb of Givatayim; Adi Raanan of the northern moshav of Michmoret; and Ilan Bar Shalom of Rishon Lezion.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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