Burning tires at the Ayalon Highway (Archive photo)
Photo: Tamar Avram
Pullout foes sentenced to community service
Judge says yeshiva students who planned to block major highway with burning tires in protest of disengagement 'very far from criminal path'
The Tel Aviv District Court sentenced two road blockers, 26 year-old Natanael Matari, and 24 year-old Nadav Teichman, to six months of community service, after they were arrested attempting to block the lanes of the Ayalon Highway in central Israel.
The attempted road blockage was meant to be an act of protest against the disengagement. Both men were convicted with planning to commit a crime, and willfully endangering lives.
Last week, the same court sentenced a road blocker to an active prison sentence.
The plan
The two suspects, together with other individuals, attempted to block off lanes in the highway by Holon, and were equipped with 15 tires, on which they poured flammable material, with an intention of setting them on fire.
Their plan was aborted in the last minute by a driver who noticed their activities and prevented them from lighting the tires.
Judge Halad Kavov said that the acts had been stopped, not because the men regretted their plan, but because they were prevented from going ahead with it.
In light of the fact that the two men have no criminal past, and “due to the fact that their path does not cross the path of crime, and they are very far from such a path,” the judge passed a light sentence on the yeshiva students.
