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Israeli jailed 3 years for Jerusalem bilingual school arson

Xinhua, December 1, 2015 Adjust font size:

An Israeli court sentenced on Tuesday a Jewish extremist to three years in prison for setting ablaze a bilingual Jewish-Arab school in Jerusalem last year, according to the Israeli Court Authority.

The Jerusalem District Court sentenced Yitzhak Gabay, 22 from Jerusalem, after finding him guilty on charges of arson, destroying property, carrying a knife and supporting a terror organization.

The attack on the school, which serves 1,000 Jewish and Arab students and was founded in 1998, took place in November 2014.

Two other defendants in this attack, both settlers from the West Bank settlement of Beitar Ilit, reached a plea bargaining with the state in July, and were sentenced then to two and two and a half years in prison.

Gabay did admit in his initial police investigation to take part in the arson, but then refused to sign a plea agreement with the state and backtracked on his admission.

The three defendants were members of Lehava (flame in Hebrew), a racist organization opposing co-existence between Jews and Arabs and interfaith marriages. Other than setting fire to the school property, the defendants spray-painted racial slurs including "death to Arabs" and "enough with assimilation."

This incident is among other acts known as "price tag" attacks, in which right-wing Jewish extremists, usually settlers in the West Bank, target Palestinians and their property and left-wing Israeli activists, as well as Christian churches and Muslim mosques.

According to some Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups, many of Jewish extremists' attacks are not investigated properly by security services and many of their perpetrators are not brought to justice.

The most severe attack took place in July, when Jewish extremists set fire to the home of the Dawabsheh Family in the West Bank Palestinian village of Duma, killing three family members, including an 18-month-old baby and his parents, and seriously injuring a four-year-old child. Israeli security forces, to the ire of many Palestinians, have yet to capture the suspects. Enditem