Palestinian Boy Who Lost Family To Arson Attack Sues Israel For $2.8M
Image by Getty Images
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The family of a 6-year-old Palestinian boy whose parents and brother were killed in an arson attack on their West Bank home has filed a lawsuit against the state of Israel demanding $2.78 million in compensation.
Right-wing Jewish extremists were indicted in the July 2015 firebombing in the Palestinian village of Duma in the northern West Bank. Ahmed Dawabshe, then 4, was the only survivor of the attack that killed his brother, Ali, 18 months old; father, Saad; and mother, Riham.
The lawsuit filed on Monday in the Nazareth District Court charges Israel with “criminal negligence,” saying that the state’s settlement policies led to the attack, specifically because it failed to demolish illegal outposts including the one from which the alleged attackers came, the Times of Israel reported,
“The writing was on the wall and it was clear to everyone that the leniency toward the hilltop youth, outpost residents and lawbreakers would quickly spill over from property damage and non-fatal attacks to deadly attacks,” the lawsuit said according to the news website.
Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman late last month said that the child is not eligible for compensation.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
