Palestinian man gets 14 years in prison for stabbing Israeli settler

Victim says justice not served with light sentence plus fine; attacker charged with aggravated assault rather than attempted murder

By Jacob Magid

You will receive email alerts from this author. Manage alert preferences on your profile page

You will no longer receive email alerts from this author. Manage alert preferences on your profile page

16 July 2018, 12:58 pm

Edit

Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

Nirit Zamora (L) speaks to reporters inside the Judea Military Court beside her husband ahead of the sentencing of her attacker on July 16, 2018. (Screen capture/Israel National News)

A military court on Monday sentenced a Palestinian terrorist to 14 years in prison for stabbing an Israeli woman in the back at a West Bank junction in 2015.

The case became controversial after the assailant, Hebron resident Hamza Faiz, was charged with aggravated assault and not attempted murder.

In addition to 14 years behind bars, Faiz was also ordered to pay half a million shekels ($137,476) in compensation to the victim.

Haim Bleicher, a lawyer with the right-wing activist group Honenu acting for the victim Nirit Zamora, acknowledged that the sentence was more severe than those typically handed down for aggravated assault.

However, he still asserted that the punishment was insufficient given what he argued was Faiz’s clear intent to kill his client.

“Just seeing the terrorist’s smile when he heard the years of actual imprisonment was to understand the magnitude of the failure and the lack of deterrence,” Bleicher said outside the courtroom.

“I cannot say I feel that justice was served here,” Zamora said. “There was no severe punishment here, nor an unequivocal statement either,” she added.

In its April ruling, the Judea Military Court concluded that it was not possible to prove that Faiz intended to murder Zamora when he knifed her in the back at the Gush Etzion Junction on October 28, 2015.

Zamora survived the incident after being rushed to the hospital with the knife still lodged in her back.

Medics arrive at the scene of a stabbing attack at the Gush Etzion Junction in the West Bank on October 28, 2015. (Aba Ritzman/Magen David Adom)

The mother of eight had been in the parking lot of the Rami Levy supermarket when the Palestinian resident of Hebron ran at her while shouting “Allahu Akbar.” He only managed to stab her once from behind because the handle of his knife broke.

The judges used this fact to argue that it was impossible to prove whether Faiz would have stabbed Zamora, a resident of the Beit Haggai settlement, again. They also pointed to the fact that he stabbed her in the back and not in the chest with a relatively short knife (4.7 inches long) to argue that he may have only sought to injure her.

Zamora has since expressed her deep frustration with the military court decision, describing it as a second “stab in the back.”