Hodaya Nechama Asoulin, Hy”d; Photo credit: Courtesy of the family
Thursday, April 2, 2020, 10:42 Honenu Attorney Menashe Yado: “We are making every effort to restrict the lives of the terrorists. At times, the efforts made by the families [of terror victims] to stop the payment of salaries to terrorists seem contrary to the lenient policies of the government. We hope that also the authorities will take a more stringent stance and lead to a reversal of the trend, which will create a deterrence for the terrorists and bring justice.”
The Enforcement and Collection Authority announced that a 300 NIS lien has been imposed on the canteen stipend of Nadal Shahada, one of the terrorists who was involved with the attack in which Hodaya (Odeliya) Nechama Asoulin, Hy”d, was injured. She later died of the injury. The funds are being transferred as part of the compensation to the Asoulin family. Honenu Attorney Menashe Yado, who is representing the Asoulin family, stated that the source of the stipend is the Palestinian Authority.
“Every prisoner has a type of private account, and with the money he can purchase items such as cigarettes and candy at the prison canteen. During the suit filed by Asoulin’s family against the Palestinian Authority and the PLO the monthly salaries transferred to the terrorists serving time in prison were revealed, including the payments designated for purchases at the canteen.
Yado explained why the Asoulin family had to independently sue the Palestinian Authority and the terrorists: “The State of Israel is two-faced, convicting and imprisoning terrorists, but also allowing them hotel conditions there – phones, canteen privileges – and the Palestinian Authority transfers funds to their accounts every month.
“This hypocrisy is an outrage to the bereaved families, and therefore we are privately attempting through legal means to bring about enforcement, because the State does not act to do so. For that reason we sued to have liens imposed on the canteen stipends of the terrorists.”
“Shmuel (Zangi) Meidad, director of Honenu: “This step sets a precedent. Terrorists are being hit immediately in their pockets, and this is a significant ‘pocket’ to a murderer who is behind bars. It is even more important as a deterrence against murderers of Jews.”
Zangi called on the bereaved families to “continue to pursue the terrorists, even after they have been imprisoned. This will create a significant deterrence against potential terrorists. Every terrorist will know that even if he come out alive after an attack he perpetrated, his life will not be easy.”
“This step is one of a series of recent precedents whose purpose is to increase the deterrence factor against potential terrorists. Among them: active prison terms for the parents of the Barkan terrorist, terrorists who were not released from prison until they paid the full sum of the compensation to their victims, and a terrorist who confessed during interrogation that the penalty handed down to the parents of the Barkan terrorist caused him to not carry out an attack which he had planned.
In February, the court ruled that the terrorists are obligated to compensate the Asoulin family, and therefore began to implement a process which includes imposing liens on the salaries paid to them by the Palestinian Authority and on their prison canteen stipends, which are transferred through the Israeli Prison Service.
By court order, the Palestinian Authority must transfer the monthly salaries paid to the terrorists directly to the Asoulin family and the funds allocated for the prison canteen stipends must be transferred by the Israeli Prison Service to the Asoulin family, until the sum of 583,598 NIS is reached.
During the legal proceedings the sum of the salaries transferred to the terrorists by the Palestinian Authority was revealed as being over 1,500,000 NIS. Thousands of shekels are transferred every month to each murderer. A monthly salary for an individual terrorist can be as high as 8,000 NIS, and over 20,000 NIS in total are transferred every month to the terrorists. Additionally, according to Palestinian law, each convicted prisoner receives 400 NIS every month from the Palestinian Authority for use in the prison canteen.
On March 23, 2011, Hodaya (Odeliya) Nechama Asoulin, Hy”d, was seriously injured when a bomb placed by a terror cell exploded as she sat at a bus stop outside of the ICC building in Jerusalem. She remained comatose until she succumbed to her injuries on November 22, 2017. British tourist Mary Jane Gardner was murdered at the scene and 67 people, including Hodaya, were injured.
Hodaya’s parents filed a suit for bodily damage and punitive compensation for an act of terror. They described how she suffered in a coma from the day of the injury until she died, and set the sum of compensation at 60 million NIS.
In 2018 the Asoulin family demanded a retrial for the terrorists who were convicted of carrying out the attack.