An Israeli military court on Sunday sentenced a Palestinian man to life in prison plus an additional 32 years over his involvement in a 2016 shooting attack in Jerusalem that killed a border policewoman.
Bilal Abu Zeid was convicted of supplying a gun and driving three Palestinian men from the West Bank into Israel, where they killed Cpl. Hadar Cohen, 19.
He was also ordered to pay NIS 1.5 million ($430,000) to Cohen’s family, and an additional NIS 250,000 ($72,000) to another policewoman wounded in the attack.
The Palestinian attackers who carried out the February 3, 2016, attack were armed with rifles, knives and two pipe bombs. They were killed by police at the scene.
Cohen, the border guard, died hours after being shot in the head and stabbed in the neck while guarding Damascus Gate at Jerusalem’s Old City. She had been drafted into the Border Police only two months earlier, and was still in training at the time of the attack.
During his testimony, Abu Zeid confessed to aiding the attackers but said he had declined to join them in carrying out the attack. “I refused and told them that I wanted to stay alive and kill Jews,” he was quoted by military prosecutors as saying.
Border Police officer Hadar Cohen, 19, was killed during the terror attack at the Damascus Gate outside of Jerusalem’s Old City on February 3, 2016. (Israel Police)
He had been convicted of intentionally causing the death of Cohen, as well as a series of security offenses. The main charge is equivalent to murder in the West Bank military court.
The court accepted the prosecution’s position that Abu Zeid was guilty of the attack due to his involvement in the planning and execution, even though he was not present at the time of the shooting.
Following the attack, the Israel Defense Forces demolished Abu Zeid’s and the other three attackers’ homes in the West Bank.
Police investigator near the bodies of Palestinian attackers at the scene of a shooting and stabbing attack near Damascus Gate, Jerusalem, February 3, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Cohen was part of a three-member squad that spotted the three Palestinians behaving suspiciously and asked to see their identification papers. As one attacker withdrew his ID card, the others opened fire and pulled out knives to attack the officers.
According to police, Cohen managed to return fire before she was mortally wounded, despite being surprised by the attackers.
