Prosecutors appeal to top court, demanding harsher sentence for 8 killers of Jewish man during 2021 Jewish-Arab riots

The State Attorney’s Office files an appeal to the Supreme Court against the allegedly lenient sentencing of eight men convicted in the killing of Yigal Yehoshua, a Jewish resident of Lod, in May 2021, during Jewish-Arab riots that rocked the city during a round of violence in Gaza that year.

Seven of the eight convicts have been sentenced to 12 to 14 years in prison, while the eighth has been handed a three-year sentence, after they approached Yehoshua, when he was driving home during Arab riots in the city that also saw dozens of cars and a synagogue set alight.

The men pelted Yehoshua’s car with rocks and bricks, one of which broke his car window and struck him in the head. He was rushed to the hospital while seriously injured with brain damage and a skull fracture, and succumbed to his wounds six days later.

The Central District Court has found that the attack on Yehoshua was carried out with “nationalistic motivations and as an act of terrorism.” In addition to the prison time, the court ordered the attackers to pay the deceased’s family NIS 900,000 ($268,000) in compensation. But many at the time, including Yehoshua’s widow, felt the sentences were too lenient.

At the behest of Yehoshua’s family, prosecutors are now demanding a harsher punishment closer to 25 years, the maximum sentencing for causing serious bodily harm under terrorist circumstances.

They insist in their appeal that the punishments handed down “do not sufficiently reflect the gravity of the acts, the severe harm caused to the deceased and his family, and the terror-related characteristics of the incident.”

“The sensitive timing of the offenses, during a period characterized by acts of violence and riots on a nationalist and racist basis… was not sufficiently reflected in the sentencing,” the appeal reads.

Like other mixed Jewish-Arab cities, Lod saw an outpouring of violence between Jews and Arabs in 2021, following the May 10 outbreak of a conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.