Former academy head, counselor found guilty in flash-flood deaths of 10 students
Parents dismayed at verdict of negligent manslaughter rather than more severe charge over 2018 Tzafit riverbed disaster
A court on Sunday convicted the former head of the Bnei Zion premilitary academy and a former counselor at the institute of reckless manslaughter over the 2018 deaths of 10 teenage students in a flash-flood during a hike in a desert canyon.
Parents of the victims expressed dismay and disappointment with the Beersheba District Court ruling that cleared Yuval Kahan and Aviv Bardichev of the more serious offense of negligent homicide that they were originally charged with.
The charge of reckless manslaughter carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.
Itzhik Or, father of Ella Or who died in the tragedy, told the Ynet outlet that parents had received “a stinging slap.”
Kahan and Bardichev were charged because they had chosen to proceed with the hike despite concerns having been raised beforehand due to a forecast of rainy weather.
“Through their negligence” the defendants caused the deaths of their charges, said Judge Yuval Livardo. “Not everything is an act of God.”
The court found there were confusing messages about what hike participants were supposed to do if it started raining and there was an “incorrect general working assumption” in assessing the weather.
Even when Kahan understood the dangerous weather situation when rain began to fall, he did not contact Bardichev, who was leading the group, and did not give him instrucions, the judge said.
He also did not find out where the group was, “despite the instructions that he himself had issued,” the judge added. “If he had done that, perhaps this disaster could have been averted.”
Nine girls and one boy were killed when the group was hit by flash floods in the Tzafit riverbed in the southern Dead Sea area.
Bnei Zion administrators took a group of 25 students on the hike despite receiving numerous warnings about the severe weather.
Bardichev had changed the route of the trip from the Tze’elim stream to the Tzafit stream despite being warned by a weather forecasting company to avoid the area due to expected flooding.
“The whole country knows that this was an unnecessary disaster,” Or said to Ynet. “They took our children and killed them for nothing. It is inconceivable that this is negligent manslaughter.”
Oriel Bar Shalom, father of Ilan Bar Shalom, told the outlet “this hurts a lot” and called the verdict “wrong.”
Bar Shalom said he hoped the prosecution will consider appealing the ruling.
The verdict, he complained, only strengthens an attitude in which those who are responsible are not held to account.
Prosecuting attorney Vadim Sigal said in a statement that the prosecution will study the verdict and then consider its next moves.
“That they were convicted on ten counts is also an achievement, perhaps even unprecedented,” he said.
The court accepted the testimony of a key witness, guide Noam Dor, who had raised concerns about the hike going ahead, but was rebuffed by Kahan.
Hadar Alfi, mother of Tzur Alfi who was killed, told the Kan public broadcaster that the verdict was “a bitter disappointment.”
“There are no words to describe the hard feelings,” she said. “How could it be determined that they were not aware of the danger?”
