According to the indictment, in August 2020, against the backdrop of a violent and ongoing dispute between families, a reconciliation meeting was held between the parties. Even before the meeting, Alshamali and others from his family had agreed to harm members of the rival family, and it was determined that the time to carry out the harm would be at the end of the reconciliation meeting.
At the end of the meeting, Alshamali and others ambushed a person they suspected of being involved in a previous violent incident. During the ambush, that person was stabbed, and Alshamali fired several shots at him with a pistol, while pursuing him in a residential neighborhood. Even after losing visual contact with the target, Alshamali continued to shoot at a residential building where family members were present, and during the shooting, a bullet penetrated a residential apartment and hit Sharifa, who was at home with her minor children, an injury that caused her death.
Before the Supreme Court, the Criminal Division of the State Attorney’s Office, through Adv. Yael Sharaf, argued that this is an extreme case in its severity of murder with indifference, including prior planning, illegal use of a firearm in the heart of a civilian area, and complete indifference to the risk to human life. The prosecution also emphasized the need for a determined struggle against the phenomenon of severe violence, particularly in the Arab society, and the use of firearms to resolve disputes, in order to protect public peace and security.
The Supreme Court accepted the prosecution’s position and determined that this was an exceptionally serious incident, stating that “given the very extensive and exceptional accumulation of aggravating circumstances in the appellant’s actions and the existing need, at this time, to combat the phenomenon of shooting firearms for ‘settling scores’ of the type of circumstances at hand, especially in the Arab sector, we did not find that there is room for our intervention in the sentence imposed on him by the District Court, even though it is exceptionally severe.”
In the District Court of Central District, Lod, the case was handled by the Central District Attorney’s Office.
Related Topics
