Killer of Palestinian mother of nine Aisha Rabi sentenced to 13 years in prison

The Central District Court on Wednesday sentenced the Jewish extremist convicted of the October 2018 killing of Aisha Rabi, a 47-year-old Palestinian mother of nine, to 13 years in prison.

The individual, who cannot be named as he was a minor at the time of the incident, was also ordered to pay NIS 258,000 ($85,500) in compensation to Rabi’s family, the maximum sum provided under the law.

The individual, who was just shy of his 16th birthday at the time, was convicted in March this year in a two-to-one decision on charges of manslaughter committed as an act of terrorism, throwing stones at a vehicle under aggravated circumstances as an act of terrorism, and deliberately damaging a car as an act of terrorism.

Rabi was killed after the youth hurled a large rock at the windshield of her car near the Tapuah Junction in the northern West Bank. Also in the car were her husband, who was driving, and her 9-year-old daughter.

The youth departed from the Pri Haaretz yeshiva in the settlement of Rehelim, where he studied, accompanied by several other students, on the evening of October 12, 2018, according to the indictment.

They arrived at a hilltop between the Rehelim Junction and the Tapuah Junction, overlooking Route 60 — the West Bank’s main north-south artery — where the youth then hurled a rock weighing roughly two kilograms (4.4 pounds) at Rabi’s vehicle, resulting in her death.

The accused, now aged 23, has denied that he killed Rabi, but has expressed regret over the incident, the court stated.

In determining the sentence for the crime, the court took into consideration that the attack was an act of terrorism, making it a more severe offense, and that it had increased the likelihood of tensions spiking in the West Bank between Israelis and Palestinians.

The court added, however, that the accused had been 15 years and 10 months old when he carried out the attack and that Israeli law treats minors differently in sentencing. The court also said that the individual has taken significant steps on the way to rehabilitation since the incident, including various types of therapy, and has changed the environment in which he lives.

“The defendant cut short the life of a woman — a wife and mother of nine children, a daughter to her parents and a sister to her ten brothers and sisters, innocent of any crime — and this before the eyes of her husband and her (then) 9-year-old daughter,” a summary of the sentencing issued by the court quoted the judges as writing, adding that Rabi’s killing was “a criminal and cruel act.”

In issuing the largest possible compensation payment to the Rabi family, the court said that it knew “no sum of money” could compensate the family for the loss of Aisha.

“We can only hope that the maximum amount of compensation awarded will help, even if only to a small extent, with the family members’ ongoing rehabilitation process,” the court said.