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 CEO & publisher 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.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
