Israel rabbis call for funds to support teen accused of killing Palestinian mum

Four senior Israeli rabbis yesterday called on the public to donate to the Jewish teen accused of killing Palestinian mother of eight, Aisha Al-Rabi, last year.

The funds, the rabbis said, would be used to pay for the legal proceedings to defend the teen, whose name has not been released.

The letter was signed by four leading figures in the religious Zionist movement; head of the Ohr Etzion Yeshiva and former Knesset member Rabbi Chaim Druckman; the former chief rabbi of the Kiryat Arba settlement, Rabbi Dov Lior; former Ramat Gan, Chief Rabbi Yaakov Ariel; and Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira of the Ramat Gan Yeshiva, Israeli media reported.

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The teen’s family also released a video asking the public to donate and help defend their son.

Last week, the Israeli public prosecutor charged the 16-year-old with manslaughter, aggravated stone throwing at a moving vehicle, and intentional sabotage of a vehicle “in the context of a terrorist act”.

According to the indictment, the attack was “based out of an ideological motive of racism and hostility toward Arabs everywhere”.

Forty-seven-year-old Aisha Al-Rabi was killed and her husband seriously wounded when Israeli extremist settlers hurled rocks at their vehicle near the Zaatara checkpoint in Nablus on 12 October 2018.

Al-Rabi was rushed to a nearby clinic by her husband Yaqoub, who was driving the car at the time they were attacked, but she died of her wounds shortly afterward.

READ: Israel’s systematic arrest of mothers shows its contempt for Palestinian women

Unpunished settlers attacks against Palestinians have multiplied – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/MiddleEastMonitor]