JERUSALEM
An Israeli court on Thursday ordered the release of an Israeli youth indicted for involvement in a 2015 arson attack that left three members of a Palestinian family -- including an 18-month-old baby -- dead.
“The Lod District Court ordered police to release an Israeli who was 17 years old at the time of the attack and who has remained under arrest for more than two years,” Israeli daily Yeditoth Ahronoth reported.
“The indicted [individual] will be released [from police custody] and placed under full house arrest,” the paper added.
The defendant faces charges of conspiring to commit murder, along with a string of other unrelated charges.
Members of the Dawabsheh family, which hails from the West Bank village of Duma, slammed the “unjust” court decision.
“Today is a sad day, like the day we pulled my brother, along with his wife and children, from the fire,” family spokesman Nasr Dawabsheh told Anadolu Agency.
The family, he added, now plans to lodge an appeal of the decision with Israel’s Supreme Court.
In July of 2015, Israeli settlers torched the Dawabsheh family’s West Bank home in an attack that claimed the lives of Saad and Riham Dawabsheh and their 18-month-old child.
Their eldest son, Ahmed, who was six years old at the time, survived the attack, but suffered severe burns that have affected his mobility.
The incident sparked international outrage at the time, with the Dawabsheh family accusing Israel of dragging its feet in prosecuting the suspects despite admissions by Israeli officials that they knew who was responsible.
