Five years after the lynching of Arab Israeli Saeed Mousa in Bat Yam during the May 2021 Operation Guardian of the Walls, the court ruled on Thursday that five defendants committed an act of terrorism, aggravated intentional damage, an offense carrying up to 25 years in prison. The State Attorney’s Office said it will study the ruling and seek appropriate sentencing that reflects the severity of the attack and the harm to the victim.
Prosecutors Rotem Neuman Wasserman and Aviv Bar Or of the Tel Aviv District Prosecutor’s Office said the verdict made clear the attack was violent, racist and carried out for nationalist motives, and could not be separated from the wider events and atmosphere that night. They said the court found that, after prior organization, a crowd came to the Bat Yam promenade, vandalized Arab-owned businesses, shouted racist slogans and tried to locate people of Arab origin in order to harm them.
The prosecutors added that the court rejected the defense’s attempt to build an alternative narrative and dismissed claims that the defendants believed the victim was a terrorist. They said most of the defendants were found to have committed an act of terrorism involving aggravated intent, one of the most serious offenses in Israeli law.
Mousa, a resident of Ramla, was attacked by dozens of Jews and nearly killed during the unrest in May 2021. The original indictment was filed against 11 defendants, most on terror and aggravated-intent charges, but the state later reached plea deals with three of them. Nine participants were charged with acting together to commit a terrorist act of aggravated intentional damage. About two and a half years after the attack, the Tel Aviv District Court also convicted Natanel Benjamin, 27, of Bat Yam, for his role in the Bat Yam riots and the brutal lynching.
The article also recalls that during the escalation, riots broke out in mixed cities including Jerusalem, Lod, Acre, Jaffa, Bat Yam and Haifa. An Arab citizen was killed by gunfire from a Jewish man who had been attacked, a Jewish man was killed in a lynching by Arabs, and several others were seriously wounded in additional incidents.
