Israeli Court Convicts Settler in 2015 Firebomb Deaths of 3 Palestinians

An Israeli court has found a Jewish man guilty in the fatal July 2015 firebombing of a Palestinian home in the West Bank village of Duma that killed an infant and his parents. The court convicted 26-year old Amiram Ben-Uliel on three counts of murder, two of attempted murder and two involving arson. It failed to convict him on a separate charge of membership in a terrorist organization. Earlier in the trial, the court threw out several of his confessions, saying they had been obtained under duress. At the time of the attack, Ben-Uliel reportedly lived in an abandoned bus on a nearby hilltop. A 19-year-old who was a minor at the time reached a plea-bargain agreement with prosecutors, saying he had been aware of plans for the attack but did not take part. Arrested and released during the investigation was Meir Ettinger, a grandson of Meir Kahane, a controversial rabbi who established the Jewish Defense League in the United States before moving to Israel, where he founded a political party that was later declared racist and outlawed; Kahane was assassinated in New York in 1990. Killed in the Duma firebombing was 18-month-old Ali Dawabshe. His father, Sa’ed, 32, succumbed to his injuries after a week. Ali’s mother, Riham, 26, died a little over a month later. Another Dawabshe child, four-year-old Ahmed, survived, with burns over 60% of his body. Ben-Uliel will be sentenced in June.