Jewish Terror: A Jewish teenager who was arrested on suspicion of throwing a rock that killed Aisha al-Rawbi was charged with manslaughter as an act of terror on Thursday after his DNA was found on the rock that hit the Palestinian woman’s car.
The 16-year-old teenager from the Mateh Binyamin area was also charged with throwing a stone at a vehicle under aggravated circumstances as an act of terror, and intentional vandalism of a vehicle as an act of terror.
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In October 2018, Rawbi, 47, was traveling on Route 60 with her husband and nine-year-old daughter when a rock allegedly was thrown by Jewish youth hit the car’s windshield. Rawbi was fatally wounded and died before arriving at the hospital.
According to the indictment, the defendant threw a rock weighing near 2 kilograms at the Rawbi family’s car, which had Palestinian license plates, “out of an ideological motive of racism and hostility towards all Arabs.”
The defendant hurled the rock “with great force… toward the front windshield of the vehicle with the objective of hurting the passengers and with indifference to the possibility of causing their death,” the indictment said.
The rock hit the upper right part of the windshield, shattered it, penetrated the glass and hit Aisha’s head with great force. As a result, she suffered a fatal head injury, according to the indictment.
During his interrogations, the main suspect chose to remain silent and refused to provide his own version of events.
After Shin Bet investigators confronted him with the forensic evidence from the scene, the suspect agreed last week at the advice of his attorney to provide a version of events that could explain why his DNA was on the rock.
According to the teenager, he and his peers hike through that area often, which could explain why his DNA was on a rock from the scene.
On Wednesday, police representatives said the teenager’s version was examined, but did not rule out his involvement in the crime.
The main suspect was arrested on December 30, 2018—a month and a half after the incident—and his remand has been extended four times since. Initially, police arrested five teenagers—all from the Pri Haaretz yeshiva in Rechalim, which is located near the scene of the attack on Rawbi. But ten days ago, four of the teens were put on a six-day house arrest, while the main suspect remained in custody.
Ynet News. Gilad Morag, Ittai Shickman and Elisha Ben Kimon contributed to this story
