Israel jails Palestinian for life wounding of a third in a Tel Aviv

Israel on Monday jailed a Palestinian for life for the 2015 killing of two Israelis and the wounding of a third in a Tel Aviv knife attack, the Justice Ministry said.
A copy of the judgment of the Tel Aviv district court said Rayed Khalil, born in 1979, was sentenced to two life terms for the murders and an additional 20 years for three attempted murders in the attack at a Tel Aviv office building.
A Justice Ministry spokeswoman told AFP that each life sentence was 25 years, with no possibility of parole.
The court ruled that Khalil, from the southern West Bank city of Hebron, should have no prospect of early release as his November 2015 rampage met the legal definition of “aggravated circumstances.”
“It is decided that the acts of murder which the defendant committed were carried out in circumstances that were exceptional in their gravity,” the three judges wrote.
The spokeswoman said Khalil would also be ineligible for inclusion in any future prisoner release that might be agreed between Israel and the Palestinians.
At a separate court hearing Monday in Lod, near Tel Aviv, judges jailed another Palestinian for 16 years and six months.
Tamer Weridat, aged around 30, stabbed and wounded an Israeli at the start of a wave of violence in October 2015.
Since then, 241 Palestinians, 36 Israelis, two Americans, a Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed, according to an AFP count.
Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out attacks, according to Israeli authorities.
Others were shot dead during protests or clashes, while some died in Israeli air strikes on Gaza.
Israeli courts have recently been handing out stiff sentences to perpetrators who survived.
On Nov. 2, a military tribunal sentenced a Palestinian minor to life for stabbing to death a 38-year-old Israeli nurse and mother of six in her home in a West Bank settlement.

Source: Arab News