For a selection of cases in which Honenu Attorneys have represented victims of rock or Molotov cocktail attacks, please click here.
Monday, June 20, 2022, 16:54 Two terrorists who injured a 10-year-old girl in a rock attack near Neve Tzuf in the Binyamin region in August 2020 have been convicted. Mahmoud Zaharan was convicted by a lone judge of aggravated assault and is expected to be sentenced to up to 10 years’ imprisonment. Yassin Atta was convicted of committing aggravated assault and solicitation to commit a crime, driving without a license and insurance, throwing an object from a moving vehicle, and joining in a forbidden association. Atta, who was charged with many offenses, was convicted by a panel of judges and is expected to receive a stiffer sentence.
Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher, who is representing the injured girl and her family as victims of terror: “We welcome the conviction of the terrorists. These terrorists carried out a rock attack that was very close to ending with a tragedy. A rock thrown at a moving vehicle is a weapon in every way. We will come to the penalty hearings in this case and demand substantial prison sentences for the terrorists.”
In August 2020, Atta was driving his father’s BMW and suggested to Zaharan that he throw rocks at Israeli cars with him as revenge for the death of one of their town’s residents. They decided to throw rocks from the car so that they could easily escape being apprehended.
Zaharan picked up a rock weighing approximately 670 grams, and they drove along Route 465 in search of an Israeli car. Atta identified a car and told Zaharan, who was sitting next to him. Atta slowed down, and when they came close to the Israeli car, which was driving quickly, Zaharan leaned half of his body out of the window and threw a large rock directly at their car, as both vehicles were in motion.
The rock shattered the front windshield, passed between the driver and the front-seat passenger, and hit a ten-year-old girl sitting in the rear seat. The rock hit the girl’s forehead, bending her head backward and causing a deep cut. She was evacuated, heavily bleeding, to Sheba-Tel HaShomer Hospital, where she underwent a CAT scan and required nine stitches. At the time, Bleicher stated that the position of the girl’s head leaning back on the headrest saved her life.