Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Palestinian terrorist gets four life sentences for killing soldiers, infant

Asem Barghouti was convicted of killing two soldiers and an unborn child in drive-by shootings on Dec. 9, 2018.

Israeli soldiers and police inspect the scene of a shooting attack at the entrance to the Israeli town of Ofra, north of Ramallah, in Judea and Samaria on Dec. 9, 2018. Photo by Ofer Meir/Flash90.
Israeli soldiers and police inspect the scene of a shooting attack at the entrance to the Israeli town of Ofra, north of Ramallah, in Judea and Samaria on Dec. 9, 2018. Photo by Ofer Meir/Flash90.

An Israeli military court on Wednesday handed down four life sentences to a Palestinian terrorist convicted on three murder charges for a pair of attacks carried out in December 2018. The court also ordered Barghouti to pay millions of shekels in compensation to the injured and to the families of those killed.

The Ofer Military Court found Asem Barghouti, a resident of the village of Kobar, near Ramallah, guilty of killing two soldiers and an unborn child in drive-by shootings carried out on Dec. 9, 2018, together with his brother near Givat Asaf, where they killed two soldiers, and near the community of Ofra, where they wounded Shira Ish-Ran and her unborn child, according to Israeli media reports.

The child, who was critically wounded, was delivered via emergency C-section but died after several days in intensive care. Ish-Ran sustained serious injuries but later recovered.

Nearly a dozen civilian bystanders were also wounded in the attacks.

The two soldiers killed by Barghouti were 20-year-old Staff Sgt. Yovel Mor Yosef, a resident of the southern Israeli town of Ashkelon, and Sgt. Yosef Cohen, 19, from Beit Shemesh.

Barghouti was arrested in January 2019 after nearly a month-long manhunt, while his brother Salih was killed by Israeli forces after he attempted to evade arrest.

“We tried to make it clear to them that this is a memorial that was built for those who died in a horrible terrorist attack,” Lawrence Puccini told JNS.
Three other soldiers were lightly wounded when the military vehicle overturned.
Sophie Shabot experienced “verbal harassment, being chased, being pushed and shoved, being spat on, yelled at, blocked from entering a building,” according to her lawyer.
“Mamdani could not even give us one day to mourn without defaming the Jewish people and giving cover to our enemies,” Inna Vernikov, a Jewish member of the New York City Council, told JNS. “We will not let Mamdani and his radical pals rewrite Oct. 7.”