Yigal Yehoshua, 56, of Lod died on May 17, 2021, after being attacked by an Arab mob six days earlier. (Courtesy)
The men, convicted in a plea deal, will each serve 14 years in prison for the “cold-blooded” murder of a Jewish man during Arab rioting.
By World Israel News Staff
An Israeli court sentenced eight Arab men to 14 years in prison on Sunday for their role in the murder of a Jewish man during the 2021 Lod riots.
The men were also ordered to pay 900,000 shekels (about $270,000) in compensation to the victim’s family.
The sentences were part of a plea deal in which the men admitted to aggravated assault. Prosecutors said the group — identified as Yousef Al-Kadaim, Walid Al-Kadaim, Karim Bahloul, Iyad Marhala, Khaled Hassona, Ahmed Danon, Kamal Dif Allah, and Muhammad Hassona — blocked roads in Lod in May 2021 during widespread rioting, targeting Jewish motorists with stones.
The violence took place during Operation Guardian of the Walls, a 10-day conflict between Israel and Hamas. Lod, a mixed Arab-Jewish city in central Israel, saw major unrest during the conflict.
Yigal Yehoshua, a Jewish electrician who lived in Lod, was targeted by the stone-throwing mob as he drove through the city.
Despite sustaining multiple blows, Yehoshua managed to drive away, but he crashed into a parked car nearby.
He was rushed to a local hospital in critical condition and died several hours later.
Yehoshua was survived by his wife and two sons.
Ahead of the sentencing hearing, Yehoshua’s brother Efi told Hebrew-language outlet Walla that he wanted his brother’s killers to receive lengthy prison sentences.
“I hope they receive a punishment severe enough for being convicted of an act of terrorism. They behaved like jihadists who murdered a Jew simply because he was Jewish,” Efi said, adding that he expected the “punishment [to] reflect the fact that they conspired together to murder my brother in cold blood.”
Yehoshua’s widow, Ira, told Walla that her family had always lived peacefully alongside Arabs in Lod and had never experienced hostility before the riots.
“We have lived here for a long time. There were never any problems here between Arabs and Jews,” Ira said. She described her husband as a man who helped anyone, regardless of their background.
“Yigal had a lot of Arab friends, and he provided service to both Arabs and Jews; [ethnicity] was never important to him,” she added.
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