Israel rabbis call for leniency for Dawabsheh family killer 

Dozens of Israeli rabbis have signed a petition calling for the settler who killed the Palestinian Dawabsheh family in an arson attack to be shown leniency, Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

The paper said the “unusual petition” addressed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calls for Amiram Ben-Uliel to be released from solitary confinement and sent to a special jail ward for religious inmates, where he would be held in better conditions.

“Since Ben-Uliel was imprisoned seven and a half years ago, he has been alone in his cell in complete isolation and in the harshest confinement condition. Under these conditions, it is infuriating to see Palestinian prisoners with blood on their hands celebrating in prison facilities and receiving better treatment,” the petition claimed.

Ben-Uliel was sentenced to three life sentences plus 20 years for the deadly firebombing of the Dawabsheh house in the West Bank village of Duma in which Riham and Saad Dawabsheh were killed along with their 18-month-old son, Ali Saad. Only the couple’s eldest son, Ahmed, survived the terror attack, suffering terrible burns; he was five years old at the time.

Ben-Uliel was found guilty in 2020 of three counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, arson and conspiring to commit a racially motivated crime, as part of a “terrorist act.”