by Yona Schnitzer
Omar al-Abed, a Palestinian Authority terrorist who murdered three members of the Salomon family last July, is to be sentenced Thursday.
In July, al-Abed infiltrated the Salomon home in the community of Neve Tzuf in Samaria, and stabbed the family members who were in the middle of a Friday night Shabbat meal.
Yosef Salomon (70) and his children Chaya (46) and Elad (36) were killed in the attack, and Yosef’s wife Tovah was wounded. Al-Abed was convicted of three counts of murder, as well as two additional counts of attempted murder.
Shortly after the murder, Michal Salomon, who lost her husband, sister-in-law and father-in-law in the incident, called for the implementation of the death penalty.
Responding to reports of the demolition of part of al-Abed’s family home, Salomon pointed out, “they can rebuild their house, but my home has been destroyed forever. We need capital punishment – or at least radically more difficult prison conditions, and to prevent them from receiving anything above the bare minimum – so these terrorists cannot rebuild their homes.”
In addition to calling for the death penalty, the Salomon family also petitioned Israel’s High Court of Justice earlier in February, demanding that the state demolish the entirety of the al-Abed family home, and not settle for only the part of the house in which Omar resided.
Ordinarily, both Israeli and international law prevent collective punishment against the families of terrorists. However, the Salomon family asserted that since Omar’s family knew of his intention to carry out an attack — a fact that was proven in court last August — the entire family home should suffer the same fate as the section in which Omar resided.
“We came to court today to ask to destroy the house of the terrorist,” said Michal Salomon, the widow of Elad who was murdered in the attack told Tazpit Press Service (TPS), “It is an important step against terror.”
“Michal came to show the judges that behind the debate there are faces, there’s a tragedy, and they have to help us prevent the next murder,” said Dan Landau, Michal’s father. “We came here to prevent the next family from [experiencing] the misery and the agony that my daughter has,” he added.