Multiple staff members have been convicted for negligence nearly seven years after the deadly Nahal Tzafit disaster in which 10 students were killed in a flash flood while on a hike with the Bnei Zion pre-military program, Israeli media reported.
Bnei Zion's directors, Yuval Kahan and Aviv Berdichev were convicted on ten offenses of causing death by negligence, as well as two additional counts of injury by negligence.
These charges are in contrast with the original case, which accused the directors of reckless homicide, Israeli media reported.
Ten teenagers from the preparatory program, nine girls and a boy – were killed after they were carried off by a sudden surge into the dry riverbed west of the southern part of the Dead Sea amid intense storms. The students were hiking on a field trip at the time of their death. As part of the hike, the group entered a stream and continued on their route despite the start of rainfall.
Faulty preparation
Kahan and Berdichev were initially questioned over their failure to heed flooding warnings and call off the hike, police said.
Kahan's "behavior on the day of the disaster shows that he was missing and silent," said the verdict, according to Kan. He "did not respond as the head of a pre-army preparatory program should have."
The verdict also reflected that despite multiple warnings in the days before and on the morning of the events, which the accused were fully aware of - the accused did not cancel the trip, Ynet reported.
Parents of the students killed reacted to the verdict, some expressing disappointment in the punishment, others bursting into tears as the verdict was announced, Ynet said.
"Despair," said the mother of one of the victims to Kan News. "There are no words to describe the terrible feeling," she added, lamenting the fact that the judges determined that there was no basis for the fact that Kahan and Berdichev were aware of the danger of going on the hike despite the weather conditions.
"The judge did not raise the flag for sanity for Israeli society," said another mother. "Disappointing and painful."
One father said the verdict gave the parents a "ringing slap in the face," Ynet said.
Gil Hoffman, Reuters, Tamara Zieve, and Avraham Gold contributed to this report