Palestinian gets life plus 26 years for deadly 2018 terror shooting
Ahmed Kunba, convicted of being member of cell that murdered 35-year-old Raziel Shevach in the West Bank, is also ordered to pay $394,000 to victim’s family
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
An Israeli military court on Thursday handed down a life sentence plus 26 years to a member of a Palestinian terror cell that carried out a deadly shooting attack in the West Bank in January 2018.
Ahmed Kunba, a resident of the northern West Bank city of Jenin, was part of the squad that killed 35-year-old Raziel Shevach near the outpost of Havat Gilad.
On January 9, 2018, the group of gunmen opened fire and killed Shevach, a father of six, on a highway near the then-illegal outpost. The terrorists fled the scene, and Israeli security forces launched a manhunt for them over the following weeks.
Kunba was convicted in July of intentionally causing the death of Shevach. The charge is equivalent to murder in the West Bank military court.
He was additionally convicted of a number of other security-related offenses, as well as plotting and carrying out a number of other attacks along with the leader of the cell, Ahmad Nassar Jarrar, who was killed by Israeli troops less than a month after the attack.
In addition to the life sentence, Kunba was ordered by the Samaria Military Court at the Salem base in the northern West Bank to pay a total of NIS 1.5 million ($394,000) to Shevach’s family.
According to the indictment, over the course of a number of weeks, Jarrar, Kunba and other accomplices scoped out areas where they aimed to carry out an attack, and waited for Israeli civilians to arrive.
Around a week after the deadly attack, Israeli forces killed Ahmad Ismail Muhammad Jarrar, one of the alleged members of the cell, and detained Kunba along with another suspect. The alleged leader of the cell, Ahmad Nassar Jarrar, was killed several weeks later.
