Killing of Aisha al-Rabi refers to the death of a Palestinian woman Aisha Rabi, purportedly during a stone-throwing attack that took place on October 12, 2018, near the Israeli settlement of Rehelim in the Israeli-occupiedWest Bank. Following Shin Bet's suspicion that this was a Jewish terrorist attack, five Jewish minors were arrested in connection with the incident, and one minor of the five was indicted of manslaughter under the circumstances of a terrorist act, while others were not charged. The incident was originally classified as a "nationalistic crime" committed by Jewish settlers against Palestinians. On May 14, 2019, the chief coroner of the Israel National Center of Forensic Medicine,Dr. Chen Kugel, concluded that the damage to Rabi's skull, which in his view had two points of impact, was too extensive to be the result of a single stone thrown at the moving car. Two colleagues dissented from his opinion, asserting that a rock could have caused the damage. The youth maintains that the presence of his DNA on the rock may perhaps have been caused by him spitting on it as he walked around that area.
The details
In the evening of October 12, 2018, Aisha al-Rabi, a 45-year-old Palestinian resident of the town of Biddya, a mother of nine, travelled with her husband, Ya'qub, in his car on Route 60 from Hebron to Biddya. According to the husband's account, a rock weighing 4 pounds was thrown near the Tapuach Junction and the car windshield was shattered. Aisha al-Rabi, who was seriously injured in her head, died of her wounds. Ya'qub a-Rabi was lightly wounded.
Investigation
Shin Bet investigations were led to focus on the Pri Ha'aretzYeshiva in Rechelim, which is located close to the road where the stones were thrown. The Shin Bet suspected that the stone throwers came from that yeshiva because of an alleged lack of cooperation on the part of the yeshiva staff and students, and because the previous day, the yeshiva students allegedly blocked Route 60 near the site of the incident, in protest of a Palestinian terror attack against Israelis, near a military base in the West Bank.The same organization, according to a Mondoweiss report, stated that on the morning after the attack, several activists from the Yitzhar settlement came and taught the yeshiva students how to prepare for, and deal with, a future interrogation from Israeli authorities. At the end of December 2018, the Shin Bet arrested three students from the Pri Ha'aretz Yeshiva. The students were interrogated for a week in the Shin Bet security service after an injunction was issued preventing them from meeting with an attorney. Five days later, two more students were arrested and were issued an injunction against meeting with a lawyer. On January 6, 2019, it was announced that the minors had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murder of Aisha al-Rabi. On January 10, four of the detainees were released under house arrest. On January 15, a Statement of Claimant was filed in court by the prosecutor on the intention to file an indictment against the minor who remained in detention. On January 24, 2019, an indictment was filed against the minor on suspicion of manslaughter, stone throwing at a vehicle and intentional sabotage of a vehicle, all under the circumstances of a terrorist act. According to the indictment, the minor threw a rock that weighs close to two kilograms in order to harm vehicle passengers of Arab descent. The main evidence is a DNA sample found on the stone that allegedly killed A-Rabi, which the prosecution alleges is that of the minor suspect who denies the charges. In May 2019, the juvenile was released to house arrest after a forensic report submitted to the court concluded that al-Rabi's injuries were not consistent with being hit by the stone.
