Two Israelis sentenced to prison for 2016 assault of Palestinian man
Yonatan Holtzman gets 2 years and Yishai Ben Abu 5 months in jail after they confessed to racist attack on outskirts of Jerusalem
The Jerusalem District Court handed down prison sentences on Thursday to two Israeli men who were convicted of assaulting a Palestinian man in a racist attack near Jerusalem a year and a half ago.
Yonatan Holtzman, 26, of Beit Shemesh was sentenced two years in jail and ordered to pay an NIS 10,000 ($2,800) fine and Yishai Ben Abu, 20, of Beitar Illit was sentenced to five months behind bars.
The sentence was part of a plea deal in which the two admitted their guilt.
According to the indictment against them, the pair were returning from Even Sapir on the outskirts of Jerusalem in October 2016. They stopped the Palestinian victim, who was not named, while he was riding a donkey on his way home to the village of al-Walaja, north of Bethlehem.
The two began cursing the victim and grabbed the rope around the donkey’s neck. When the victim called on them to stop, one of the two threw a rock at him, hitting him in the chest, causing him breathing difficulties and forcing him to dismount.
Then the two threw more rocks at him, and one of them grabbed him by the neck, threw him to the ground and hit him with a rock he was holding in his hand.
While the victim was on the ground the pair began kicking and punching him, all the while cursing him.
According to the indictment, Holtzman had his 11-month-old daughter with him when the attack took place.
