The families of the three teenage yeshiva students who were abducted and murdered by terrorists in 2014 – Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah – are to be awarded NIS 38 million compensation by Hamas, the Jerusalem District Court ruled on Tuesday.
Civil rights organization Shurat HaDin has appealed the ruling, claiming that the sum was too low. The organization filed a lawsuit against Hamas a year ago on behalf of the families for NIS 520m.
“This is not how you deter a terrorist organization with a billion-dollar budget that continues to murder Jews and fires at Israeli civilians,” the organization stated.
Shurat HaDin, which has represented the families of the three boys, further claims that this ruling belittles the lives of the victims, noting how US courts are awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to victims of terrorism.
The victims’ families have announced that they will appeal the ruling before the Supreme Court.
“A ruling granting a tenth of the amount of the compensation claim will fatally harm Israeli deterrence and measures to eradicate terrorism through economic means,” warned Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, president of Shurat HaDin.
The three boys waited at a popular hitchhiking spot next to Alon Shvut in Gush Etzion south of Jerusalem on June 12, 2014, hoping to catch a ride toward their respective homes.
When a Hyundai i35 stopped, they got in and shortly afterward realized that the driver and passenger were not Israeli. Shaer was able to call police at 10:25 p.m., whispering, “We’ve been kidnapped.” Gunshots were heard two minutes later, and the call was disconnected.
The boy’s bodies were discovered 18 days later on June 30 in a shallow grave near Hebron. Following the kidnapping, the IDF conducted Operation Brother’s Keeper to arrest Hamas leaders in the West Bank, with the Gaza-based terrorist group increasingly firing rockets into Israel.
The IDF in turn launched airstrikes and sent troops into the coastal enclave. The resulting war – during which terrorist groups surprised Israel by using cross-border attack tunnels – lasted seven weeks and left 67 IDF soldiers dead. The remains of soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin, killed in the war, are still being held by Hamas.